


Double Trouble

by Cajdachan



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Academy, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Slight Jaspis from the start maybe?, Strong Language, Teacher-Student Relationship, life change, student life, use of drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-12 00:50:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20555489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cajdachan/pseuds/Cajdachan
Summary: • Lapis Lazuli is a college student focused on natural science. She's her own woman, the menace of authorities, a wild, proud trouble-maker, but suddenly her behavior changes beyond recognition once Pearl, a fresh-baked mineralogy professor, comes to lecture at their college. What is the future going to bring for these two?•Human AU





	1. Back To Reality

**Author's Note:**

> • Hello, guys! I am back with a brand new fanfiction that is taking place in a college environment. Unlike "Over Our Obstacles" this college AU is going to be shorter. I hope you're going to enjoy this Pearlapis story! ;)
> 
> • **PS:** English is not my native language; please be considerate. :O If you find any unbearable grammar mistake(s), please tell me, I'll fix it/them right away! ;)
> 
> • **Wish you good reading!**

<•••>

Soft rustling woke Lapis up. Instead of checking who was making the noise, she rather checked the alarm clock on her bedside table. Her vision was quite blurry and so she couldn’t recognize the number on the display.

She hissed in pain while sitting up, rubbing at her tired eyes. Her head and body felt heavy for some reason and her hair was pretty messy. “Fuck, my head…” She swore. She glanced round the room, thereupon she noticed a large figure with long light hair roving there and back, searching for something.

“… Jasper?” She squinted. Her sight wasn’t exactly getting better.

“Morning, party animal.” Greeted the tall girl.

“Why the hell are you in my dorm?” Lapis grumbled, then some unpleasant scent suddenly hit her nose. It was a mixture of sweat, smoke and beer occupying the room.

“We got here after the concert yesterday, remember?” Jasper stopped for a moment and thought. “… Well, today actually.”

Lapis blinked slowly, both eyes at a different time, still sleepy. “Ah, sure... Where is Peridot though?” She glanced around again, and as if Peridot could hear her name, she appeared in the doorway. The smell hit her, too, once she entered the room.

“Oh my _god_!” The small blonde clasped her nose in her fingers, waving her hand in front of her as if she could get rid of that odor. “What on earth were you doing here? Oh, I actually don’t wanna know… just ignore me, I’ll pack some things and I’m out of here.”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Peri.” Lapis ran her hand through her hair – it felt like one big tangle of straw. Sitting on the bed, she realized she had no underwear on, but at least she was still wearing her concert shirt. Even though she was in covers, she rather pulled the blanket up to her chest. “Where were you?”

“I was tired of _you two_ singing and doing mess at 3 AM, so I spent the night at Aqua’s place.” She proclaimed grumpily, wading through the piles of clothes and beer cans all across the floor.

“What were you expecting from two metalheads after the best concert ever? You should’ve been used to it by now, lady.” Jasper laughed, but then stiffened and growled. She flipped over the whole room, but the thing that she was looking for was nowhere to be seen. “Where the hell is my phone?!” She swore and again started throwing bed sheets and pieces of clothes into the air.

Peridot just stared at her with raised brow and lightly dropped chin. “Alright, let me just get my things without mentioning metal _or_ the concert, thank you.” She asked and headed towards one of the two desks in the room.

“Oh, you totally should’ve come with us, Peri!” Lapis’s face shone. “The mosh pit was hella sick! And the singer jumped into us!”

“Yeah… I’ll never forget touching his salty, hairy armpit.” Jasper grinned.

Peridot’s face twisted in disgust. “Please, just spare me the details, okay?” God, there it was – the conversation that she didn’t want to start. It was her own fault though, she brought up the topic. “I can’t understand how you people can even listen to that. It’s not even music! Not mentioning the actual signing… it’s just fucking throwing up into microphone!” Peridot barked and threw one of the textbooks into the bag she carried on her shoulder. “Metal is such trash.”

“Yeaah, thrash metal is good kinda metal.” Jasper said as if she missed the first part of the speech, finally finding her smartphone. “There you are!”

“It’s absolute garbage!” Peridot shot back. This type of argument was nothing new. Peridot was really passionate about music, but when it came to metal, she couldn’t stand the fact that the two of her friends were freaking headbangers.

“Still better than country music.” Lapis stated with a grin on her face, mainly because she enjoyed arguing about music with her roommate. She was cute when she was upset.

Goosebumps ran up Peridot’s spine. She turned to Lapis and gave her the sharpest look she could. “Take. That. Back.” She squinted, but Lapis just chuckled at that.

Peridot’s eyelid twitched, but she got that Lapis was just playing games with her. She took a deep breath then. “Here, I’m glad you’re having fun, but shouldn’t you prepare for Mineralogy lecture at ten rather than bring this up again, Lapis? We’ve got the new professor today, so I would _highly_ recommend coming on time.” She suggested and then put the last textbook into her bag. The longer she was in the doom, the more the mess and smell were irritating her. She wanted to get out of there.

“Jesus, Peridot, am I a pope to participate in every single session?” Lapis snorted and scanned the room, thereupon she found her purple underwear lying on the other side of the room. How did it get there?

“I mean, if you want to make a good first impression, you’d better be there _yet_ before ten.” The small blonde said, crossing arms on her chest and raising her chin haughtily while walking back towards the door.

“Good impression?” Lapis snorted again and gestured for Jasper to throw the purple underwear lying just next to her foot at her. “She’s gonna run away from the college yet before she sees me.”

“She is… if you don’t take a shower before showing up in the class.” Peridot frowned, turning the door knob.

Lapis thought, smelling her armpit. “You think that would work?”

Peridot exhaled, shaking her head at her immature attitude. “I don’t have to answer that now, do I?” She asked, but it was rather a rhetorical question than anything else, and with that she exited the room.

The dorm went silent as Peridot left. Lapis then sighed and flopped back onto her bed, then suddenly her purple, laced underwear landed on her face. “… Thanks, dude.” She grumbled, her head started hurting a little bit more than before.

“No prob.” Jasper smirked and put her phone into her pants pocket. She then watched Lapis lying motionlessly on the bed for a bit. Suddenly, with a grin on her lips, she recalled yesterday’s concert, all those people partying long into the night, running round and round in the mosh pit while thrusting into one another, falling to the ground and standing up again, drinking good beer, shoving satan horns into the air while growling and singing from the top of their lungs. Yeah, they both had a good time – and especially after getting into the dormitories. “… Man, that was a fucking great night.”

Lapis raised her brows and then removed the underwear from her face, recalling the whole evening. Then she actually started remembering the events yet after the concert. “You mean the concert or the sex?” She wondered, but gave her friend a wide smirk.

“Well.” Jasper chuckled and sat onto Lapis' bed. “Both… We should do that again.” The tall girl proposed.

“What exactly?” Lapis teased, but Jasper’s seductive gaze was saying more than an actual answer. “You’re right, we totally should.” The blue-haired girl snorted and folded her arms under her head. She thought for a moment, remembering all the concerts they’ve been to. It has always been great. She couldn’t wish for a better company than Jasper – and of course all the people from their metal group.

“Hey… you know what I miss?” Lapis asked suddenly, getting a little bit melancholic.

“What?” Jasper wondered.

“Band practices.” She admitted, breathing out. Still, neither of them could get over losing one member of their band – she decided to leave because she wouldn’t be able to commute between Beach City and Ocean Town regularly because of her education, and so there were only four of them left.

“You think I don’t?” Jasper huffed. “… It’s different without Spinel.”

“It is…” Lapis breathed out once more and thought for a second or two, then slowly sat up. “… I know we talked about this already, but… don’t you think we could give it a second chance? Like… try and get together again? At least with the rest.”

Jasper pursed her full lips, unsure. “I don’t know. It’s been quite a long time.”

“I know… but don’t you think it would be great? I mean… we all miss playing and spending time together under the garage roof, right?”

“It would be great, yeah.” Jasper agreed, however, she hung her head down a little. “But it wouldn’t be the same.”

Lapis would like to sound positive, but suggesting that it would be better this time wasn’t exactly a good idea, so she remained silent.

“Bismuth’s got a job, Amethyst broke one of her drums and I bet you forgot how to sing.” The tall blonde said way too casually.

“Wow…” Lapis reacted with a noticeable irony in her voice. “Dude, I sing way better than you.”

“Sure you do, baby.” Jasper smirked, but she meant it. She truly adored Lapis’ vocals.

They stared at each other for a brief moment until Jasper’s watch notified her of thirty minutes after nine. She raised her thick brows. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

Lapis sputtered. “For what? I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

“It’s half past nine. You‘ve got a class in thirty minutes, don’t you?”

“So what?” Lapis asked as if she absolutely didn’t care. And frankly, she didn’t. Clearly, her plan for today was falling asleep again and dozing until the next day. “You’re doing like you always get to your class on time.”

The blond girl rolled her eyes, sighing through her nose. “So you’re skiving again.”

“That’s the plan.” Lapis laid back down with a wide smile on her lips and tossed her arm over her eyes to shade them from the light. “Honestly, I can't even think about getting my ass out the dorm right now…” She paused for a moment, perceiving the headache even more. “Man, I shouldn’t drink that much yesterday. I feel like shit.”

“Yeah, as if I didn’t tell you… you seemed like drinking one whole beer stall.” She chuckled and patted Lapis' thigh. “… Hey, you’re gonna be fine, you've been through worse. Just get yourself a shower and clean clothes… You smell pretty bad.”

“Thanks, Jasper.” The girl muttered hoarsely.

A small grin appeared on Jasper’s face. She then inhaled, slapped her strong thighs and stood up. “Well, I gotta be going. Got some coursework to do.”

“Coursework? Now?” Lapis raised her arm from her eyes, looking at her friend. “Are you even able to make up something after yesterday?”

“No.” She shrugged. “But it should’ve been done a week ago, so… I got no choice.”

“Well, good luck to you.” Lapis put her arm back down.

“Good luck to me.” She nodded, slowly making her way towards the door, but as she opened it, she stopped.

Lapis removed her arm from her face again after not hearing the door closing, noticing Jasper standing still on the spot. “What's up? You broke or something?”

The tall girl frowned. “I was just… thinking.”

“What?” Lapis sputtered, raising her dark brow. “You never think, Jasper.”

Jasper stood still as if she didn't hear the remark. She hummed softly. “Hey, I don’t know why, but I think Peridot was right.”

“About what?” Lapis sat up once more.

“You probably should go there. I mean, aren’t you excited about the new professor?” The tall girl wondered.

“What-are you mad? Why should I be?” Lapis reacted dryly. “… Seems like you are though.”

“Me? Pff, I give zero.” She shook her head, even though she knew she would lie if she opposed. “But if I were you, I’d try to keep good reputation. There might be at least one professor not having a problem with you for a change.”

Lapis laughed briefly at that. “_Good reputation_ doesn’t go along with my name since I got my ass into the college.”

“Well, do as you think.” The girl shrugged and turned on her heels, leaving the room and closing the door. “See ya later, babe.”

The dorm was left in silence again. Lapis then flopped back down onto the bed, exhaling. She ran her hand through her indigo fringe, flipping it backwards, enjoying the emptiness and peace in the room, yet trying her best to ignore the loud mower outside right under the window.

She replayed yesterday’s great show in her head. She had so much fun, especially when Jasper was there. She really appreciated that she had such a nice mate like her, but when it came to study responsibilities, Lapis couldn’t exactly count on her. Practically, they were just crime and metal pals, yet occasionally it escalated into wild intimate physical contact.

Lapis checked the alarm clock after a while. She had twenty minutes until the beginning of the mineralogy lecture, so she’d better move her bottom if she wanted to make it on time. Her whole body however was highly protesting. It felt as heavy as if Lapis got out of a pool after one hour of swimming. Her eyes were swollen and reddish, hair protruding to every world side and her makeup wasn’t as pretty as yesterday. She considered that maybe she drank a little bit too much once her head let her know about itself again. She smelled quite bad, too, though it was mostly beer and smoke. She was quite a mess.

The girl growled. “Mineralogy, man… what does a fucking paleontology student need to know some stupid rocks for?” She wondered and with a wry tone in her voice she continued. “Clearly to distinguish a bone from a rock, Lapis.” She rolled her blue eyes, then she laughed at how stupid this small self-talk actually sounded. “Jesus… I really should do something with myself.”

Lapis then sighed softly, lying still on the bed, resting and blinking slowly and staring at the ceiling for another couple of minutes.

Now, maybe for the first time in her life, there was some sort of voice she could hear inside her mind – a conscience perhaps? No. No way. Usually, when something popped up in her mind, she was used to throw it away instantly no matter what it was, but this time it was quite different – and that felt odd. This time, however, Lapis felt like listening to Jasper and actually going there, but the state she was in right now wasn’t exactly the best example of making-a-good-first-impression.

In the end, she considered that she should just get up and deal with whatever she was supposed to attend in. She pushed away the covers, grabbed her purple underwear that Jasper threw at her before and as she was about to put it on, she noticed two hickeys on the inner side of her thigh quite close to her crotch. She flushed red and froze for a moment. A wide vein appeared on her temple then, her eyelid twitched. “Jasper, you prick!”

After a brief cursing, Lapis packed clean clothes, a towel and hygienic supplies and headed to the dorm showers. Feeling hot water rolling down her skin once she got into one of the shower stalls felt really nice. It was almost impossible to catch a stream of warm water in these showers, especially when there were more people in the room. This time, Lapis was lucky and even got some extra time to wash her hair, too.

Quite often, while Lapis was taking a shower, she was thinking about all the monkey business and naughty things she’s done during her scholar life with her friends – such as graffitiing buildings, skating outside designated areas, breaking into forbidden areas in the town or spitting down at cars from atop of a bridge. Once she even stole a bike or broke a car's window in effort to get something she liked from the inside, she recalled. She was for every kind of dirty activity because for her it was a great deal of adrenaline and fun, yet sometimes she got into plenty of problems because of that. Lapis is still surprised that the principal hasn’t expelled her from the college yet. She too could’ve ended up in jail for the crimes she did, but somehow she always managed escaping the jaws of law.

Rubbing a handful of shampoo into her hair, she was smiling at those sweet memories. What she felt was blissful. She was full of life. She felt unstoppable – when she wasn't thinking about the headache at the moment. Adrenaline was running through her veins, her feral heart was beating fast and joyfully. That’s what she was living for – the risk.

She pushed the shampoo foam down and started massaging her arms, shoulders and chest. Water was streaming down onto her face, water drops rolling down her neck and back.

Lapis stopped the water from running after washing all the foam off of her. She then grabbed the towel and began drying herself up. Meanwhile, she heard someone entering the shower room. Those were light footsteps, barely audible. In curiosity, Lapis peeked out from behind the curtain to find out who it was, and once she found out, her face turned into an annoyed one.

‘_Perfect_…’ She thought to herself as she caught a sight of Aquamarine – the one Lapis along with Jasper called “runt”. Lapis could barely find one single thing about Aquamarine that she wouldn’t dislike. There simply wasn’t any positive thing about that human being. This girl was pretty much as frustrating as a mosquito buzzing while trying to fall asleep during a hot summer night. What was irritating Lapis the most was Aquamarine’s high-pitched, arrogant voice. She’d say that she was the most hated person in the college and that’s what made Aquamarine so popular. She was always right, she was a perfectionist, a nerd and the voice-of-reason kind of person. Simply put, she was the greatest weirdo in the college with Peridot following right behind. These two were practically one, but Peridot was, fortunately, the less annoying one. Lapis couldn’t get how these two could get along. Peridot was Lapis’ roommate. She could stand Peridot’s grumbling while studying twenty-four-seven, but Aquamarine? Lapis would kill her instantly right on the spot and going to jail for it would be definitely worth it.

Lapis finished drying up herself, she dressed herself into clean clothes and waited until Aquamarine got into one of the shower cabins before Lapis got out of hers. Lapis then packed all her belongings and sneaked out of the stall. She then got a brilliant idea.

She waited patiently until she spotted steam coming out of Aquamarine’s cabin. A wide smirk grew on Lapis’ lips while leaning her loins against one of the washstands, lightly squeezing a faucet handle. Slowly then, Lapis turned on the faucet and almost instantly she could hear a loud shriek from the other girl. The pleasant warm water turned into a freezing cold one thanks to the one and only water heater in the building.

“What the _fuck_?! Turn that faucet down!” Aquamarine yelled.

Lapis sniggered, feeling more than pleased with this evil plan. Silently, she creeped out of the room and headed to her dorm, leaving the faucet running.

Drying her hair took just a few minutes – she took her hairdryer and in a second her blue mane was dry to the roots. Several times she brushed through the waves of blue, then grabbed her favorite scarf, pulled her fringe backwards and covered it with it, tying the ends of the scarf at her nape.

Feeling fresh and clean, she put on some makeup, got her notes and textbooks and put them into her backpack, finally checking her watch. She smiled. “Twenty past ten…” Lapis hummed, satisfied. “Lapis, you’re getting better and better every day… and still we got some time for a brief walk before getting into that hellhole.”

Putting earbuds into her pierced ears, she walked happily out the room, left the campus and extremely slow she wandered towards the college building with volume up and head swinging into the rhythm of loud metal music.

This was going to be a good day.

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Jasper and Lapis woke up at Lapis & Peridot’s dorm after yesterday’s concert  
• Lapis took a brief walk before attending the mineralogy lecture


	2. Something Strange

Usually, it takes about five minutes to get to the college, but Lapis extended her walk by ten more minutes before walking through the main door. Then, instead of making her way straight to the class, Lapis stopped by every picture hanging on the main hall‘s wall and criticized each piece which took her seven more minutes before entering the classroom. She was trying her best to get there as late as possible because that was simply her style, yet what was truly natural for her was not showing up at the lecture at all. She got into many problems because of it, but she was proud of it. That’s what made her name famous, especially between professors, but somehow Lapis’ charisma always got her out of trouble.

Half of the session was already over and Lapis finally managed getting into the classroom. Triumphantly, she entered the room, proudly announcing her arrival. “The queen has arrived to her land, folks!” She waved her hand in a nobleman manner.

Once everyone’s eye got a sight of her blue mane, Lapis was more than pleased to hear a few green from her classmates – except for Peridot. She just rolled her eyes and looked away, leaning her chin against her palm.

Lapis’ ego grew and with that she made her way towards one of the empty seats. Well, better said she tried before she noticed _her_. Lapis froze on the spot for good two seconds.

That was her – the new professor, standing still and staring at Lapis. The blue-haired girl scanned her from the top to the bottom, certainly taking her time. She was tall and quite skinny. Her facial features made her look so innocent and fragile. Her skin seemed so smooth and clean at sight, her light blue eyes were so big, so kind and loving. Peach curls were lacing her jaw and a few barely noticeable freckles were decorating her faintly pink cheeks. The curve of her lips, her slightly open mouth and the cute pointy nose made Lapis’ heart stop for a second or so. For a moment, Lapis even forgot about her headache.

The woman seemed just as stunned as Lapis for the short period of time. Lapis swallowed, but still she was staring. Her jaw dropped a little.

“Can I… help you, miss?” The professor asked, sounding a bit shy.

“Uuuum…” Lapis shook off the brief daze and cleared her throat. “I-I apologize for coming late, I… missed the bus.” She lied, scratching her nape. She could see Peridot palming her face with a corner of her eye.

‘_At least four of them_.’ Peridot thought to herself and sighed because she knew there were no buses going between the campus to the college. Lapis was such a convincing liar when she had an opportunity.

“Of course.” The professor put one of her peach hair locks behind her ear, clearing her throat softly. “That may happen sometimes. Please, take a seat, miss-uh…”

“Lazuli.” She said as she wandered towards the empty spot next to Peridot. “Lazuli Lapis.”

The woman blinked and after a brief look at Lapis, she leaned towards the professor’s desk, sliding her finger down the list of students until she found Lapis’ name, scanning over the numbers of notes and admonitions from the previous mineralogy professor. “Miss Lazuli, I see… I’m noting you’re here.” She said and checked the attendance box. There were fairly many admonitions and notes there. Some of them were written over the boxes that weren't even designated for them. It gave the woman a few seconds before she read through all of them.

‘_Skiving school, late arrivals, not good study results… hmm_.’ The professor read in her mind, biting her lip. Lapis, meanwhile, sailed through the class, zigzagging between chairs and seats in the comfy, home-looking room, occasionally thrusting into people she was passing with her bag or elbow.

“Hey, pear.” Lapis nudged her friend as she sat next to her, taking a notebook and her favorite blue pen out her backpack. The blond girl just moved her eyes round in circle, not even bothering looking over at Lapis. She was tapping the tip of her pen against her notepad, waiting for the professor to continue in the talking.

“Now, students…” The woman began after closing the class register book. “Let’s continue with the mineral formation, shall we? As we mentioned earlier, the magmatic forming process involves the formation of magma by smelting or melting solid rocks, its output into the upper parts of the Earth's crust and its differentiation and crystallization. The next formation process is called _the hydrothermal process_. Please, note that in hydrothermal processes, minerals are formed from hydrothermal solutions at a temperature of–“

“… You actually came, wow.” Peridot murmured at Lapis, raising her brows and beginning noting the professor’s words.

“Well sure.” Lapis chuckled. “It was making my heart heavy knowing that you’d be here all alone and unguarded.”

“Thanks, I feel safer now.” She proclaimed casually, looking ahead now.

Lapis giggled at that and let the conversation fade after a moment – which she doesn’t normally do. She was quite talkative during sessions, but this time the professor caught her attention.

Lapis began watching her lips moving rather than actually listening to the words that were falling from them – was it something about metamorphogenic and diagenetic water? She didn’t know. Lapis was standardly not listening to what professors were saying, but now it felt strangely different. She wasn’t giving attention to the words and neither to the surroundings, but rather to the woman. Lapis then started watching her a bit more closely. Briefly, she listened to the tone of her voice. It sounded really kind. Compared to Aquamarine’s irritating voice, the professor’s one was honey-sweet and motherly warm. The way she was moving was interesting as well. Her movements were graceful, but from time to time quite timid when she was facing the class. The way she was dressed also got something to it – she wasn't wearing any surplus makeup even though she was quite pale. Her clothes were simple and had pleasantly light colors. She was wearing white crimped blouse, turquise cotton pants cut just at her calves and her brown low flats were making her ankles nicely visible. But what impressed Lapis the most was her exemplary handwriting – it was so clean and just pleasant to look at when her hand with those thin, long fingers wrote something on the whiteboard.

Lapis then caught herself staring. It was the second time today and it definitely made her feel odd, but it was probably just because the professor was new in the college. Once Lapis knows her better, she’ll pretty much dislike her as any other lecturer.

Lapis grinned at that idea and crossed her freckled arms on her chest. She leaned against the backrest and started rocking herself on the chair, but as her eyes landed on the woman once again, she froze and began feeling even stranger than before.

The girl shook her head. She needed to distract herself and so she glanced round the room for something that would draw her mind away from the woman. She ended up looking at Peridot then. She smiled and leaned to her. “Hey, you going to the canteen then?”

Peridot shrugged, still noting things into her notepad. “Probably.”

Just then Lapis noticed that Peridot’s already blued another two pages with notes and annotations and turned the page to begin on the next blank one. That shook with Lapis a little. Once she realized that the very first page in her own notebook was still empty, she started wondering if Peridot was just a super quick writer or if Lapis was simply out of perception for too long.

“–However, hydrothermal minerals don’t only occur as veins, but may be dispersed in various rocks through which hydrothermal solutions have penetrated.” The professor’s words ran through Lapis’ head all of a sudden.

Lapis thought that she probably should note at least something when she, eventually, made her lazy self come, but when it came to writing, her writings were mostly nothing more than nonsensical scribbles. She was rather doodling or staring out the window than writing something important that she should remember. The only thing she noted so far was just a headline that wasn’t even correctly written.

The rest of the lecture she spent biting her pen, checking her watch or rocking on the chair. Peridot was disturbing her thanks to the constant writing the whole time. Sometimes, the blonde shifted her glasses up, sometimes she scratched her elbow and sometimes she sniffed because her nose was quite stuffy. One classmate next to Lapis was playing gameboy while other one was deeply asleep.

Forty-five minutes eventually passed and the professor ended the lesson. Students packed their things, except the one that was sleeping, and headed out of the room – mostly to the dining hall to get lunch, to dormitories or to another lecture. Lapis packed the only two things she had on the table and waited outside the class for Peridot. And finally, she came out.

“You done?” Lapis leaned away from the wall.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Peridot nodded and led the way downstairs.

“How come it always takes you so long?” The blue-haired girl asked, shifting the strap of her backpack upper her shoulder.

“Because I have more than just one thing in my bag, Lapis.” She proclaimed while entering the staircase. “Setting them all in there takes time.”

Lapis just rolled her eyes at that and when the conversation went silent for a moment, she had some time to think. But the first thing she thought about was the new professor. Lapis visualized her in her mind – those long legs, her light eyelashes and those thin lips calmly moving as she was explaining certain things that Lapis wasn’t paying attention to. Her voice was still ringing in Lapis’ ears for some reason, and it made Lapis a bit frustrated. This never happened to her before. She kept telling herself that this will pass sooner or later and she’ll be back in her regular rut, but her conviction shattered as soon as the woman came to her mind once again.

Lapis then shook her head almost furiously which caught Peridot’s attention.

“What’s wrong?” The smaller girl asked.

Lapis looked at Peridot’s not exactly worry-seeming expression and wondered what to say. The longer was Lapis staring at her, the faster she was running out of ideas that she could use as a lie. She certainly didn’t want to confess to Peridot with what was bothering her at the moment. Peridot, meanwhile, raised her light brows, still waiting for answer.

“Nothing, it’s-uh…” Lapis started and scratched the back of her neck. She felt trapped for some reason. She needed to turn around the thoughts in her head. “I was just wondering if-uh… if I could have your notes?”

“Excuse me?” The blonde’s brows rose even higher, but they rather turned into a curve that represented confusion.

They hit the first floor and all that Lapis managed to make was just a stupid looking grin.

“Are you kidding me?” Peridot barked and briefly stopped before continuing towards the cafeteria. “You were just there and you’re telling me that you got nothing?”

It was true, Lapis’ notebook was almost completely empty, but she rather wanted to stop thinking about that woman than actually ask for notes in the first place. But when she started thinking about it, she realized that she in fact needed them. “Trust me, I tried my best.” She then let out.

“Are you kidding? I barely saw you holding a pen in your hand.” She reproached. “You could at least record the speech.”

“Well, one could say that recording is harder than it looks.” Lapis shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal.

Peridot smacked in annoyance, rolling her eyes. She then said nothing, just continued along the hallway.

“Pretty please, Peri… Can I have them?” Lapis tried and blinked at her several times, nudging her gently. “For the last time.”

“Lapis, I’m giving you my notes after _every single lecture_ and your results never got better than terrible.” She argued and slowly entered the canteen room.

“Well, if I were studying from my notes, I wouldn’t get even a Z.” The taller girl shrugged and followed her friend to the line, taking a tray from one of the piles there.

Peridot sighed and took a bowl with carrot salad, putting it onto her tray. “I’m certain about that.”

“… So?” Lapis tilted her head and successfully overpassed the rack with salads without taking a bowl.

An exhale came out of Peridot. ‘_Will this ever change?_’ She asked herself and then read the list of today’s main meals before answering. “Okay… but this is the last time I’m giving them to you.”

“Ach, you’re awesome.” Lapis rejoiced and also read the list of meals on the board in front of her.

“I know.” The girl said, then she reached for a plate with baked chicken and rice.

After a while Peridot stopped talking and shifted forth the line and Lapis’ mind travelled back to their new lecturer. Lapis then cursed and kicked herself mentally, but followed Peridot. Lapis then watched Peridot taking cutlery and an empty plastic cup.

Lapis reached for a plate with fish and potatoes and again followed her friend. “So… what do you think about the new genius?” Suddenly came out of Lapis. She cursed in her mind again. That actually wasn’t what she wanted to start with!

“You mean the mineralogy professor?” The girl asked, filling her cup with ice tea.

With that Peridot offered Lapis a chance to change the topic, but Lapis answered sooner before she could realize that she could actually do so. “Yeah?” She made an uncertain face, cursing for the third time.

The girl with glasses shrugged. “She’s alright… unless her classes are that boring that I fall asleep in them.”

Visualizing Peridot sleeping during a class made Lapis chuckle. She never fell asleep during any session, she’s always alert and brisk. She even insists in having at least eight-hour long sleep every day.

Once Lapis’ chuckling settled down, she started wondering, filling her plastic cup as well. “What’s her name anyway?”

Peridot gave her one big annoyed face at that, holding her tray and waiting for Lapis to finish filling the cup. “… If you came on time, you’d know that.”

“Oh, come on. Tell me.” Lapis asked as if she totally missed the slightly irritated tone in her voice. She filled her cup and followed Peridot then.

“I’m not telling you.” She resisted and looked round the hall to find a free spot.

“Come ooon, Peridot. Don’t be like that.” Lapis elbowed her lightly enough not to spill her tray, but Peridot tried to ignore that. Lapis’ irresponsibility made her feel sick sometimes. Lapis had such luck that Peridot was always so kind and helped her when she needed, but sometimes Peridot felt like it was over the line.

“I know you’re playing tough, but you know that I’ll break you eventually.” Peridot then heard Lapis over her shoulder. For once in her life, Peridot wanted to stand her ground and dismiss Lapis. She was never that annoying unless it came to pleading for help, but Peridot was too weak over this. Eventually, she gave up anyway. Lapis was one of her true friends even though she was constantly making fun of her, but yet she was one of the few people that could stand Peridot’s “nerdness” and needs.

“… Pearl White.” She grumbled, still glancing around the room.

“What’s that?” Lapis tilted her head, but then Peridot turned to her and spat.

“Here name, jesus!” She frowned a little, then she turned back with a sigh and caught a sight of a familiar looking haircut in the distance and one free chair next to the haircut owner.

“Oh… sure.” Lapis made a face and snorted. ‘_Pearl… What a name._’

“Hey.” The other girl began then, facing the person on the other side of the canteen. “Would you mind if I sat with Aqua?”

Of course Lapis wouldn’t mind, unless Peridot wanted Lapis to sit at the table with them, which Lapis doubted. Peridot knew that these two weren’t getting along very well.

“I’m okay.” She said. There was just one empty chair anyway.

“Alright, see you later then.” The blonde said and headed to Aquamarine.

In a minute, Lapis lost her in the crowd of people. Some of them were leaving their spots and made them free, so Lapis took that opportunity and sat at one of the nearby tables. The table she sat at was often the emptiest one because it was the closest to the table designated for professors, but Lapis didn’t have any big problem with that.

She settled down on the seat and began eating her meal. Briefly, between every bite, she glanced around the canteen, watching students coming and leaving. She then noticed Peridot and Lapis’ enemy chatting. Aquamarine seemed as she was complaining about something due to her arms gesturing quite passionately. Once she even looked at Lapis and glared at her hatefully. Lapis then send Aquamarine one wide, sarcastic smirk as a response, but that escalated into Aquamarine giving her a middle finger back.

Lapis then chuckled at that and shook her head a little. She began feeding herself with potatoes once more and tried to forget about those two. She then cut a piece of fish and put it into her mouth, later adding a small potato to it.

Usually, Lapis’ mind was free from thoughts. She was barely thinking about anything into deep, but now she couldn’t stop thinking about one particular person. Every time she was chewing a mouthful, she was thinking about her again, but damn she didn’t want to. She didn’t know how to get her out of her mind, but what she knew was that the more she was trying not to think about Ms. White, the more the exact opposite was happening. Lapis had no idea what was making her think about her like that or why. What was so different and what was so special about her, compared to the other professors, that made her stuck in Lapis' head?

Lapis exhaled. She needed distraction so much, but neither drinking nor eating and not even the noise in the hall was helping her now. It was disturbing, but at least and luckily for Lapis, the woman wasn’t eating at the professor table at the moment. The table was empty.

She grabbed the plastic cup from her tray to take a sip, but before she could swallow, someone’s great palm hit her back which made Lapis spit the ice tea out her mouth. She started coughing and instantly she put the cup back down.

Some tray full of food landed onto the tabletop. “Hey, tiger.” A familiar voice greeted her.

While coughing, Lapis realized it was Jasper sitting down next to her. “Jesus, are you mad?” With her fist, Lapis hit her own chest several times to get rid of the liquid stuck in her throat.

“All the time.” The big girl chuckled. “Wasn’t expecting you here.”

“Me neither.” Lapis admitted and coughed for the last time. This was a really bad surprise, but on the other hand, she was glad that Jasper showed up. Lapis took a breath and calmed down. Briefly, she watched Jasper settling down a taking cutlery. “… How did the coursework go?” She asked and this time she managed to take a sip from her tea.

“Hey, I got it.” Jasper revealed. “But man, I don’t think I can hand it over to my teach.”

“How so?” Lapis asked and placed the cup down, putting another piece of fish into her mouth.

Jasper took a bite, too. “You know I’m bad at writing essays.”

Lapis giggled at that fact and swallowed the mouthful. “Yeah… I liked the one about beer though.”

Jasper gave it a chuckle. “Yeah, I was proud of that one. I got a C.”

Lapis snorted at that, taking another bite and chewing. “I don’t get it. It was deffinitely worth an A.”

For a minute, they enjoyed their meals, but then Jasper spoke, clearing her throat. “Just in curiosity… have you been to the mineralogy lecture today?”

Lapis’ hand froze on its way towards her mouth, but then she managed to deliver the piece of food there, chewing slowly this time. “… Maybe?” She swallowed, avoiding Jasper's eyes. Honestly, Lapis was rather expecting Jasper to ask about something different than this particular topic which would Lapis love to pass over. So she decided to answer as simply as possible to avoid more similar questions, but for Lapis’ misfortune, this type of answer made Jasper continue in the interrogation.

“So you were there.” Her eyes widened in surprise. She smiled. “How was it? How was she?”

Lapis bit her lip, watching her empty plate. “Nothing special.”

“Oh yeah?” Jasper looked at her with a corner of her eye, raising one of her eyebrows and noticing the different tone in Lapis’ voice that just suspiciously changed.

“Yes! No? I mean-uh…” Lapis could feel her cheeks getting warm for some reason and she pretty much disliked that. She then cursed in her mind. “Whatever, it was like any other lecture. And she was okay. Nothing more.”

The blonde then turned her head towards Lapis and watched her briefly with confused eyes. Her gaze made Lapis feel kind of vulnerable and cornered and she really didn’t like this feeling, but before Lapis managed noting something to ease this awkward-feeling situation, Jasper spoke again.

“Are you alright, dude?” She blinked. Jasper could somehow feel that something wasn't right about Lapis. Lapis was always confident and determined, but the sound of her voice was saying rather otherwise now.

“I-I’m sorry, Jas. I gotta go now.” Lapis rose from her seat and took the tray – a bit faster than she intended.

“Why so hurry all of a sudden?” The girl asked and straightened in her back.

The smaller girl then turned around, making several steps backwards, making up some good lie. “I got some work to do… just realized.”

“Oh?” Jasper’s eyebrows rose again, then she shrugged. “Okay. I’ll see you later then?” She asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

“Sure.” Lapis grinned, but not as much to seem somehow suspicious. “See ya.” She said and turned on her heels. She returned the tray with used dishes and briskly left the cafeteria.

More than anything she wished to be back in her dorm. She really needed a pause. This day was weird and Lapis wished for it to be never repeated. She felt quite uneasy, she couldn't make up what was going on with her so suddenly. There was something strange going on which she didn't understand.

She got into the campus sooner than usual, then made her way upstairs and entered her dorm, falling down onto her bed and burying her head into a pillow.

She really needed to sleep this feeling out. Today was too much for her for some reason. Fortunately, there were no more sessions today, so she could stay just like this the whole afternoon and until the next day. That’s what Lapis needed – a sweet, long sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Peridot and Lapis attenned in Pearl's first mineralogy lesson  
• Lapis noticed that there was something strange going on with her  
• after lunch, Lapis went back to her dorm to try to sleep out the odd feeling


	3. Old Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:**  
• use of drugs

The very next day, Lapis woke up at 11 AM. When she opened her eyes, there was no one to be seen in the room. Peridot must’ve left to attend her Tuesday chemistry class at eleven o’clock.

Today, classes were about to begin at 3 PM for Lapis, so she had plenty of time to spend doing whatever she’d like. Typically, she would pack her things and make her way to the college swimming pool to cool her nerves and the tension that she gathered from the previous week – and today wasn’t an exception.

She kicked the covers off of her and stretched her limbs as much as physically possible, deeply breathing in and yawning. She felt fresh and full of energy, ready for the new day.

She didn’t bother making her bed before heading to the restroom on the floor. She walked barefoot to the room, perceiving the square-shaped tiles cooling her feet. After leaving one of the toilet stalls, she washed her hands and checked herself in a mirror. Usually, her makeup looked terrible after the previous day. She was pretty much lazy to undo it before going to sleep every day, however it wasn’t that bad this time, but still she was about to remove it.

Lapis headed back to her dorm, sat cross-legged on the bed and took her cosmetic bag to get the remaining garbage off of her face. After narcissistically considering that she was beautiful even without makeup, Lapis put the bag back on its place and put on clean clothes. She grabbed her sport bag, packed her bikini, towel and swimming cap, took her skateboard and with earbuds in her ears she travelled to the swimming pool.

On her way there she met some friends and so a few foes, yet at the end of her journey she was more than surprised to meet the lord of all her enemies entering the building – Aquamarine.

Lapis rolled her eyes and growled at the realization of spending minutes, spending several valuable hours of her life with her at one place. Lapis was supposed to relax in the pool, float peacefully on the surface and not watch someone like Aquamarine occupying her temple of peace.

Lapis took her skateboard and went inside the building, following Aquamarine to the girl’s locker room without being noticed. She didn't want to interact with her just yet and so she silently entered the room and waited behind a line of lockers as the other girl began undressing and storing her clothes in one of the lockers. Once she was done, she walked to the shower room and Lapis was left alone. What a nice opportunity to commit something wily it was, Lapis thought to herself suddenly. It wouldn't be her if she wasted such a great chance and so she began making up an evil plan. She knew very well that Aquamarine hated surprises and so Lapis didn't hesitate to make one, mainly because she was master of them. All of a sudden, a truly cunning idea popped up in her great brain. Lapis grinned widely at it and carefully she sneaked up to Aquamarine’s locker to open it, checking if there really was nobody that might witness what she was about to do. Quietly raking through her clothes, she encountered with her laced panties, but then her small white bra became the main point of interest. Lapis investigated it closely and then noticed a small tag with Aquamarine’s name on it. Corners of her lips turned yet more upwards. ‘_This is gonna be fun._’

She took the bra then, walked out the locker room and peeked into the one next door. The room was empty so far, so she threw the bra inside and happily walked back to the girl’s room, sniggering. She truly enjoyed doing these things because no one ever managed catching her doing them. Even though everyone could confidently point a finger at her and blame her for pretty much any monkey business that was going on all around, they never got any evidence. It was one great mistery. And it was so satisfying for Lapis.

‘_Let the boys have some fun._’ Lapis dusted off her hands proudly. By the way, this was the main reason Lapis always kept her locker locked.

She approached her favorite locker in a corner of the room and began undressing. After locking her things in and putting on her blue bikini, she tossed the towel over her shoulder and walked to the shower room.

For her surprise, Aquamarine was still there – the poor little thing that had no idea what happened just a few seconds ago in the other room. Lapis tried to erase the huge grin on her face, just in effort not to be suspected from something dirty right from the start, and approached the line of showers. There were five of them in the room, but Lapis chose to stand just under the one that was closest to Aquamarine. She stepped under it and turned the water on.

Aquamarine jerked, eyes wide as dinner plates. Lapis’ sudden appearance made her heart stop for a second.

Lapis looked at her with a corner of her eye. “Hello, princess.” She greeted, but couldn’t bite back a grin as she started rubbing her freckled arms under the stream of cool water.

Aquamarine gave her the most annoyed expression she could, clicking her tongue. “Wonderful, another fucked up day.” She proclaimed poisonously, but it rather made Lapis giggle under her nose.

She wanted to make Aquamarine feel uncomfortable, so she inconspicuously shifted a bit closer to her and started washing her chest, her thighs and bottom.

Lapis’ movements indeed made the girl feel unpleasant, but what made her feel extremely uncomfortable was the closeness between them. Even though Aquamarine stepped a few steps to a side, she felt as awkward as if two men were standing right next to one another while using a urinal. But this was just the beginning. Once Aquamarine realizes that her bra mysteriously disappeared from her locker, she’s going to freak out. Lapis really adored that idea and the grin on her lips grew even wider then.

Aquamarine glared at her. “… I want to ask you something.” She began as she noticed that something about the girl wasn’t right, but Lapis didn’t bother turning her head to her. She even tried to seem as if she wasn’t listening to her, however, the girl continued because what leaves her mouth can never be ignored. “You have no idea who could _possibly_ turn on the freaking faucet while I was taking a shower at dormitories yesterday's morning, _do you_?”

Lapis’ dark brow rose – of course she had an idea. “Pff, me?” She chuckled. “What’s gotten into you?” She tried to sound casual, but when she was talking to this girl, she could barely form something that wouldn’t sound sarcastic.

Aquamarine pierced her soul with her sharp eyes, turning off the shower. She didn’t trust her – she never trusted a single word she said. The goddamn grin on Lapis’ face seemed very suspicious – just like always anyway. The girl started getting tired of it though. The more often she was seeing that smile, the more it was getting on her nerves. She flushed red. “… I bet you had a hand in that.” She said in a whispery voice. “Just look at you… smiling so stupidly.”

“Dear, Aqua.” Lapis began with a sigh and turned the water off as well. She bent in her knees to be at Aquamarine’s eyelevel as if to make her feel humbled and gave her one gloriously sarcastic smile. “You surely know my timetable better than I do myself and so you _definitely_ know that I had a mineralogy class at that time.” She said astutely, using this fact in her favor, flicking the girl on her tiny nose.

“Ouch, hey!” Aquamarine spat, rubbing at her damaged nose for a second. She then threw a sharp look at the taller girl and grabbed her by her arm, drawing their noses together and huffing furiously. “You are aware that you're playing with fire, right, beautiful?”

Lapis’ grin just widened. Aquamarine looked so cute when she was furious and Lapis would kill for it. It was just amusing. “… Well, what would you say, sweetie?”

“_Don’t_ call me like that!” She barked furiously and pushed Lapis away. “You will regret it one day, I’m telling you… You’ll regret everything you've done once I catch you in action. You’ll regret the day you were born!” She threatened, pointing a finger at her, but the more she was threatening her, the bigger Lapis’ grin was, and it was so irritating! Aquamarine swore that if she could, she’d kill that prick right on the spot, but she chose to mind her own business rather than waste her time with this scum. She grabbed her towel and stomping out of the room she headed to the covered pool with Lapis’ vein-cutting smile glued to her back. It wasn't over yet. Aquamarine swore that one day she'll put an end to all of this. She swore revenge – a sweet, great revenge.

Lapis was more than satisfied with this little chit-chat, and the fact that the best was yet to come was making her even happier, though she was aware that she should rather be absent once Aquamarine finds out about the missing bra. Lapis was doomed – she knew that, but it was always worth it. Fortunately, Aquamarine never got a chance to catch her and that was pretty much thrilling and raising Lapis’ ego.

But finally, Lapis made her way to the pool. She ignored everyone and everything around her and sank into the water, slowly getting used to its coolness. She exhaled in relief and began swimming. She swam several pools there and back. It was so pleasant and relaxing. She needed that – especially after yesterday. What a weird day it was, Lapis recalled. But she was sure it was over. It must be.

Geography class that started at 3 PM was at most boring – just as usual. Lapis kept doodling dinosaurs in her notebook instead of noting. She rocked back on her chair, arms crossed on her chest, tapping her pencil against her lips. She realized that the pencil was getting shorter and shorter each class and yet from both sides, mainly because Lapis was chewing the wood when she was bored and also because there were more pictures than words in her notepad that she wasted the graphite on.

The geography professor’s voice was the kind of voice that one could liken to a mother trying to sleep her child, but Lapis wasn’t ready to sleep. She wanted to get outside and have fun, but first she had to overcome the remaining half an hour of that torture.

Once the geography class ended, Lapis was the first one leaving the room. She was surprised that Peridot hasn’t shown up. She wondered what sorts of insistent things could’ve made the great nerd skip the lesson, but eventually Lapis shrugged at that. She was skipping session all the time herself, so why bother with that?

She was wandering downstairs to the locker hallway when Jasper texted her message. She pulled her phone out her pocket and read: “Yo, Spinel’s throwing a party at her place this Saturday, you coming?”

Lapis’ eyes shone. She hasn’t seen that girl in ages. Of course she was coming! She texted Jasper back immediately, a stupid wide grin played on her lips. Just the thought of seeing her good-old friend and former band member made her wish it was Saturday already, but unfortunately it was still Tuesday – half of a boring week to go.

Suddenly, Lapis recalled all the wicked things their “gang” used to do before Spinel began studying in Ocean town’s college. She studied way too far away to be able to keep meeting up with her Beach City friends, let alone participate in band practices. It was just different without her. It was less fun. Lapis wished they could commit some crime all together again. She missed those days as they used to hang out all days and nights long.

Lapis was counting hours until the one and only Saturday. She again caught herself not paying attention during classes, but she had a good reason. She was really excited to see her great friend.

But finally, Saturday night was knocking on the door and Lapis could do nothing but count minutes and prepare herself for the party. She asked Peridot if she were coming, too, but the girl wasn’t interested in showing up at the party at all. She had more important things to do than getting drunk, she said. She actually wasn't a big fan of the activities that the girls were usually doing. Peridot had standards and she always lectured Lapis about how their behavior is once going to bring them all to jail. Lapis kept rolling her eyes at that because the more often Peridot was repeating herself, the lecture rather started losing its meaning. This time Lapis put it behind herself instantly and focused on the party evening.

She slipped her feet into her favorite pair of shoes, put on her leather jacket and exited her dorm. Jasper and Amethyst were waiting for her in the car in front of dormitories. Lapis skipped downstairs and hopped in.

“Yo, folks.” She closed the door and got greeted as well. “Where's the rest?”

“Bis is not coming. She's got a night shift.” Jasper revealed from the driver seat.

"Well, that sucks." Lapis said and fixed her bangs.

Jasper watched Lapis through the rear-view mirror, waiting for her to buckle up, but Lapis wasn’t doing anything even close to it. “… You buckling or?”

Lapis snorted, throwing her arm over the headrest next to her. “Who needs seatbelts?” She grinned and tossed her leg over the other.

Jasper locked her mouth in a line with a brief exhale through her nose. “Do as you think.” She shrugged and turned on the engine. “But if cops stop us, you’re paying it yourself. I’m no more responsible for your shit.”

“These cops can’t catch even flu, Jasper.” Lapis said mockingly, giggling at the memory of the last time they almost got caught on their “secret mission”. “Don’t worry about me, mom. I’ll be fine… Unless you drive like a total dick and smash us against a wall.”

So they drove to their destination. Good mood settled in the car once they started joking about life, chatting about school and complaining how parents suck. It was entertaining – especially slandering. They didn’t even have to drink alcohol to have fun – they were undemanding, but of course when it came to alcohol, they never despised a glass or two.

Once they arrived, the house was already brimming over with life. Colorful lights were beaming through the windows and loud music was shaking the ground.

Lapis loved loud music. She was used to it thanks to metal concerts. The strong beats were as charging as sunrays. She enjoyed the rough sound waves drumming against her chest and she really was eager to get in to percieve it to the fullest.

She got out of the car excitedly and ran straight to the front door. Once she hit the doorbell, she realized that ringing it was absolutely pointless due to the noise, so she took the doorknob and just waited for the others to join her at the porch. However, before Amethyst or Jasper managed getting to the small staircase, Lapis was already opening the door and bursting inside.

A wave of hot, thick air smacked her in the face as she entered. There were so many people – dancing, drinking, chatting, laughing and smoking. She could see a bunch of familiar faces there, but also some that were absolutely new to her. But once she spotted the one and only face she was willing to see, her smile shone bright.

“Well, well, well, look what we got here!” A slim girl with two pink ponytails spread her arms and waded through the crowd towards the newcomers. She still looked the same, wearing those badass ripped jeans, lace boots, all kinds of piercings and punk chains. What was slightly different about her, however, were her cheeks stained with trails of black mascara. Perhaps it was her new makeup style, Lapis wondered. She couldn’t really tell from the distance.

Lapis’ heart started rejoicing at the look at the girl. It’s been so long since the last time they saw each other. “Spinel!” Lapis cheered and spread her arms. “Man, it’s so good to see you.”

“Likewise, my dear.” Spinel chuckled and warmly hugged all of them, making one of these long super-weird secret fist bumps with each. “I was worried you weren’t coming, guys.”

“How’s that?” Jasper gave Spinel's back a friendly slap.

The girl cleared her throat and shrugged. “Just started wondering if 9 PM was past your bedtime. It’s half past nine already.”

“No offence, but you look like someone who just woke up, kiddo.” Jasper shot back with a brief laughter.

“Honestly, you’re not far from truth.” Spinel rubbed her chin and chuckled. “But enough of that, let’s go have some fun!” She announced and led the way to a living room.

The room wasn’t the fullest one in the house. Way higher concentration of people was in the basement and garage, so the group settled in the living room to have at least a small chance to hear one another through the noise.

“Ah, I'm so glad you're here! Please, make yourself at home.” Spinel gestured towards a sofa. “What would you like to drink, sweethearts?”

“As always, Spiny.” Amethyst dropped down beside Jasper. Lapis imitated them, threw her arm over the backrest and put her crossed legs onto the low table.

“So, one baby bottle of warm milk for each?” Spinel pointed finger guns at them with a smirk on her face, swinging on her heels.

Lapis snorted. “Dude, do I look like I'm ready to take a nap?”

“Okay, so half a bottle for Lapis.” Spinel joked, though she tried to sound serious.

“Hey, if you’re going to continue like this, you can just go ahead and breast-feed me right on the spot.” Lapis grinned, but Spinel’s face rather turned into disgust after that.

“Man, I forgot how gross you can be sometimes.” She said, but despite that she snorted. “You know what, I’ll just fish something out the icebox. I’ll be right back.”

Girls watched Spinel disappearing behind a corner and then started actually paying attention to the surroundings. The party started just a while ago, but there was mess everywhere already – empty bottles were lying on the floor and some were decorating windowsills. Ashtrays were full of roaches, most of the pizza boxes were empty and on the top of it all there was one wide red stain on the table carpet. Suddenly, Lapis remembered how Spinel hated cleaning up – and there already was a ton of work to do before her parents come home.

“Hey, Jasper.” Lapis’ train of thoughts was broken once Spinel approached them, throwing a can of beer at her friend.

“Thanks.” Jasper ably caught the can and clicked it open. Another can was thrown, but this time at Amethyst and before Spinel could throw the last tin of beer at Lapis, she was already sitting next to her and handing it over to her.

“Thanks, Spiny.” Lapis said and tossed up her head to get rid of the hair in her eyes.

“No prob.” The girl grinned and opened her own can, tossing her leg over the other. “So, what’s up? It’s been so long, you guys.”

“Tell me about it.” Jasper began. “Just yesterday we were talking about ya. Days became longer and nights shorter without you.”

“I can imagine.” Spinel smirked confidently and after a moment she pulled a sack of a green herb pulp along with a piece of rolling paper out her pocket, fixing up a cigarette out of it.

“Woho, slow down, dude.” Amethyst almost started choking with beer as she noticed it, but despite that she smiled at the work in progress.

“What-you want me to stop?” Spinel looked up at her, playful smirk on her face.

“Hell no.” Jasper took the word. “It’s like strip-tease, dude. You can't stop now.” She chuckled and drunk her tin empty.

Spinel smiled again and continued in rolling the paper. “So, how’s school going? How’s the band doing without me?”

“I feel like we should be the ones asking questions.” Lapis suggested, watching her friend licking the paper and closing the cigarette.

“Well, school sucks. What would you expect?” Spinel snorted and shrugged, but then started searching in her pockets for something instead of answering. “Hey, got a light anybody?”

“Here.” Amethyst threw her lighter at her, but as soon as Spinel noticed its old-school design and state, she burst into laughter, trying to light it up. “Dude, what the hell is this? You could’ve just thrown a pack of matches at me rather than this.”

“Hey, none of your shit against grandpa’s old lighter.” Amethyst pointed her half-empty can at Spinel, but chuckled.

“Yeah, come on, Spiny. That thing is neat.” Lapis put her chin into her palm while resting her elbow on her knee.

“It can be, but what is it good for when it doesn’t work?” She scanned over it, trying to figure out how the thing works, brows furrowed.

“Jeez, gimme that.” Amethyst rolled her eyes and leaned over Jasper and Lapis to Spinel, stretching her arm. “You’re like a baby.”

“Could a baby roll up a joint?” The girl snorted and handed the cigarette along with the lighter to her.

“That would be cool.” Lapis stated, brows raised, taking a sip of her beer.

Fortunately, Amethyst knew how the lighter worked and without any problems, she lit the cigarette up. She then put the lighter back into her pocket and handed the cigarette back to Spinel, but she denied it. “It's for you, guys. Drag in first.” She said and so Amethyst dropped back down onto the sofa and puffed, filling her lungs with smoke, then breathing it out.

“Daaamn.” Amethyst grinned widely and sank into the back of the couch, handing the cigarette over to Jasper on her right. “I forgot how great you used to make these things.”

Spinel tied up one of her ponytails, corners of her lips turned up at the compliment. “Thanks… It’s been a while since I made one. Smoking’s not fun without you.”

“Well.” Jasper started, but before she continued, she puffed. “How about your chick? Weren’t you two having fun smoking without us?”

Suddenly, the great smile on Spinel’s face dropped like a house of cards at the mention of the particular girl. Spinel began thinking, silently she stared ahead. After a moment her head hung down a bit, her brows wrinkled. During just a few seconds, she managed to swap between several different expressions, and eventually she started chuckling. There was something odd about it though – it began creeping them out a little. The group began exchanging looks because they couldn't understand what was going .

“My chick?” She snorted and then started chuckling even more, the others though could see that something wasn’t okay. Suddenly, they noticed tears welling up in her eyes. “I have none chick.”

“What?” Lapis’ chin rose from her palm. “What do you mean?”

Spinel swallowed a sob. One tear made another dark trail on her cheek.

The girl shook her head as a flash of memory ran throught her mind. She frowned. “She broke up with me… as soon as she found out I smoke weed.” She revealed and almost furiously she wiped her cheek dry with the back of her hand.

“Whaat?” Amethyst straightened. “Just because of that? Is she stupid?" The girl shook her head in disbelief. "Man, what's bad about smoking?”

“What a jerk.” Jasper proclaimed, keeping her voice steady and deep. “That girl doesn’t know what’s fun.” She shook her head as well and dragged in once more.

“I’m sorry, Spinel.” Lapis shifted closer to her and sympathetically she put her arm around her shoulders, but then rolled her eyes just to herself. '_Relationships_.'

The girl huffed, shaking her head once memories started coming back to her. More tears began rolling down her face, but she was urgently trying to fight them. “Whatever… she was too prissy anyway. She was raised way too well to spend her time with scum like me.” She confessed, spending the upcoming five minutes by arguing and reassuring herself that it was only good for her that they were no longer together, trying to bring up and describe her every flaw she knew about just to make herself feel better, but the longer she was talking about the girl, the more good things and memories she remembered, and the faster she was realizing that despite all that, she still loved that girl and that she wanted her back.

Girls were sitting around her, listening and comforting her as she vented. Amethyst headed to the kitchen, bringing more beer from the icebox while Lapis was patting Spinel’s back gently. Jasper rolled up another cigarette just for Spinel to help her ease the distress.

“Thanks.” Spinel sniffed, taking the new cigarette that Jasper was handing her.

“No prob.” She said and took one of the cans that Amethyst brought, opening it. “We’re here for you, you know.”

Lapis watched Spinel for a moment, watching the dark trails of mascara on her cheeks widening with every next tear. She sighed and patted her friend again. “Spinel, let me tell you something, okay?” She shifted closer to her, waiting for Spinel to turn her head to her. “Relationships suck… they steal free time and money from you and the only thing they bring is pain…" She brought up and continued, looking into her friend's watery eyes. "Hey, just take a look at me, okay? I’m here with buncha good fellas and I’m having the time of my life. I don’t need anybody else to enjoy myself… And you know what, you're totally free! You don’t need a relationship to make out or get laid. You can go ahead and fuck with whomever you want and whenever you want without regrets.” Lapis grinned at her, hoping it will cheer her up at least a little bit, but the girl remained still, watching Lapis. Lapis’ smile then lowered a little. She lost a bit of confidence, but she tried again. “Hey, I know it hurts… and I’m really sorry… but maybe you should just focus on yourself and take a break from relationships for a while… and perhaps spend some time with us again, what do you say?”

Spinel looked away, head hung, but she nodded at that. “Yeah… you’re probably right.” She sniffed and puffed, then breathed out smoke. For a moment, she studied the cigarette in her hand, watching the lit up side of it as it was slowly fainting, thinking about what Lapis said and letting it sink in. “Thanks, guys… for being here with me. I’m glad I got a chance to be with my people again after a long time.” Spinel smiled a little, handing the cigarette over to Lapis, but she rather backed from it.

“No, thanks.” She pulled up her hands. “You know I throw up after that.”

Spinel snorted and dragged this one in instead of Lapis, then offered the cigarette to Jasper. “You got no balls, Lapis.”

Lapis glared at her, but with a huge grin on her face. “I do… I’ll show them to you once you grow up.” She chortled and finished her beer.

Spinel just shook her head and opened another tin for her friend.

"Hey." Amethyst spoke all of a sudden, a little dazed already. "How about spending some time at junkyard later? Just the four of us. Could be fun, huh?"

"Totally." Jasper ran her hand through her long blond mane. "Let's show our friend what's new in our kingdom."

This was going to be a good Saturday night, Spinel thought. She missed this town and its people so much and she was more than glad she got a chance to come back home at least for a short time. She was looking forward to everything that was new, but also to the good-old things that the four of them and Bismuth used to do together. This was going to be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Lapis met Aquamarine at local swimming pool  
• Jasper, Lapis and Amethyst showed up at Spinel's party


	4. An Angel

Jasper’s chest puffed up in pride as she was overflowed by interjections of wonder and amazement.

“Damn, Jasper. That one was sick.” Lapis stared at the enormous spit falling down from the bridge and ending on the windshield of a car that was just passing the road under them.

“See? I told you I’m the best.” The tall blonde dusted off her shoulders.

Lapis raised her thick dark brows and turned the corners of her lips into an arrogant smile because Jasper was absolutely wrong. Lapis was convinced that she could do better than her so she simply laughed at that remark, even though she secretly adored her score. “Oh yeah?” Lapis hit her own chest with her fist several times to encourage herself. “Just watch. I’m gonna kick your fat ass.” She challenged her and cleared her throat. She grabbed the stone border of the bridge wall with both of her hands and gathered all the spits in her mouth, sounding as if she was dragging them up from her heel.

Amethyst was cheering her and impatiently waiting for it to come out while Jasper’s ego was slowly and silently dropping down thanks to seeing Lapis dragging the spits from the very bottom of her body. No, Jasper couldn’t be beaten! She rather brought a confident smile up to her lips just to hide the little hint of concern. Spinel, on the other side, was standing a bit aside from the group, smoking a cigarette, leaning against one of the few lamps on the bridge and watching the three competing in spitting down at cars. Watching them was fun. Once Spinel was thinking about joining them, but in the end she decided not to. She wasn’t in a mood for any horseplay for some reason now. She couldn’t stop thinking about her ex-girlfriend. She was thankful that girls dragged her outside and also for them trying to cheer her up, though she rather had a feeling as if she were just ruining the mood because they never managed that. Spinel managed to finish three cigarettes in the two hours they spent wandering around the night town. She couldn’t even tell if it was helping, but at least it was keeping her above the water for some time.

Lapis waited for the right moment and then spat out. The spit rushed through the air and successfully landed on one of the cars below. “Haha! Yes!” She chuckled.

Jasper silently admired her score, but just sputtered at that, throwing her mane to a side importantly to pretend that she wasn’t impressed at all. “Just don’t celebrate too soon, Lapis. There’s a lot you have to learn before even getting a chance to beat me.”

“I can beat you anytime and way too easily, my dear.” Lapis smiled at her mockingly and clung onto her strong arm, patting it.

“Ha! Now step off.” Amethyst then cleared her throat, cracking her knuckles and joining them at the stone wall. “You better learn from the true master here.” She said and pretended as if she were rolling up her sleeves. She stepped to the wall and began gathering spits in her mouth. The other two just shut up and stared at her while Spinel was starting off with fourth cigarette.

Amethyst then forced out everything she got and somehow she managed to split the great spit into two, eventually hitting two cars at once, causing a brief embarrassed silence in the audience.

“Well.” Lapis’ eyes widened, mouth locked in a tight line. “Holy cow.”

“Damn, Amethyst!” Jasper grinned. She stepped to her and hit her back proudly.

“Thank you, thank you.” The girl said loftily, bowing several times.

“That’s how it’s done.” Spinel joined the conversation after a while, sniggering faintly. “You two should be ashamed.”

“Oh, shut up.” Lapis chuckled, waving her off.

“Hey, come join us, Spiny, will ya?” Amethyst jumped up and sat onto the stone border. “It’s fun.”

“I can see.” The corner of her lips turned upwards a little, then she dragged in again. “But I guess I grew out of it.”

“Nonsense.” Lapis just shook her head, crossing arms on her chest, watching her friend just shrugging at that apathetically. Seeing her distressed face made Lapis’ stomach twist. She wondered what else could cheer her up if not spitting at cars. Spinel used to love it, but when that didn’t work, then what could?

After discovering and investigating the very new things at their junkyard base, another hour passed and the group decided to move elsewhere – there were lots of places to visit before the end of the night. They wandered downtown, crossing empty streets and occasionally checking offered goods in local shop windows. Jasper and Amethyst were leading the way while Lapis and Spinel were taking the rearguard.

Their noses eventually lead them to the noble part of the town atop a hill where the local cream of society stayed. This whole district was sparkling with palaces, great villas with large florid French gardens, swimming pools and expensive cars. Only the richest gentlemen and ladies could afford luxury such as these fine residences that one could barely just imagine in their dreams.

The group continued along the line of fancy houses. Amethyst and Jasper kept laughing at something they were discussing, Spinel was just following their footsteps with head hung down, walking like a soulless body. Lapis put her hands into her jacket pockets, frowning and arrogantly turning her nose up while passing by all the luxurious buildings, looking into their windows and gardens, watching the “chosen ones” having fun on private soirees, drinking fancy cocktails and making overly obtrusive gestures while trying to make a good impression on someone.

Lapis hated these people. They thought they were something more than others, that they could afford anything that they’d point at, despising all the ordinary people that belonged to the very bottom of the society.

The girl slowed down her pace without even realizing it, walking along a line of expensive limousines that were bordering the sidewalk. Each car was different and yet exactly the same – not a trace of blot on the body, nor even one single fingerprint. All windows were crystal clear, no scratch, no dust particle present on the glass. Little golden or silver statues decorated hoods of the cars – they were sparkling that much that one could go blind even from taking a brief look at them. The interiors were decked with the hardest precious stones and ivory, seats coated with real leather, not even mentioning mini bars at the rear part of the vehicles. In a nutshell, there were many expensive things worth stealing. Very expensive. Extremely expensive. Was is even safe leaving these cars parked on the streets?

Lapis hummed. At that moment, something lit up in her head. A little cunning smile curled up on her lips once she was passing by one of the cars in the endless row. Her attention caught one golden angel statue that was decorating the hood of the car standing next to her. She stared at it for a moment, scanning over all the details. Suddenly, she got an awesome idea. She clasped her bottom lip in her teeth and smiled even wider.

“Hey, Spinel!” She whispered aloud so her friend could hear.

“Hmm?” The girl turned around, though her face rather seemed bothered.

“Come here.” Lapis gestured, grinning. Once the girl with two ponytails stepped to her, Lapis stretched her arm and hung it over the girl’s shoulders, tugging her towards herself. “Hey, Spiny…” She began in whisper, leaving the other ones behind. She glanced around to make sure that nobody from the local citizens was watching them. “Can you see that statue?” She asked and pointed at it, wiggling her brows, smirk on her lips.

Unsure where she was heading with this, Spinel began scanning over the golden angel on the hood in front of them. “Yeah?”

Lapis then cleared her throat, placing her hand onto Spinel’s chest and patting it softly. “That statue, my dear, is yours.”

Spinel’s brows wrinkled in confusion. “What?”

“Yeah, go get it.” She spurred, pushing her friend forth.

“What-no!” The girl pulled back. “Why would I do that?”

“For fun, jeez.” Lapis gestured dramatically while Jasper and Amethyst were getting farther. “Don’t be a chickenshit. You're making that long face all night long, I want you to have fun, too.”

Spinel huffed. “But I don’t even have anything to pick it with.” She proposed.

Lapis turned her eyes upwards with an exhale. “Dude, don’t make excuses. Just be creative!”

The other girl crossed her arms on her chest, looking away. Now even the teeny tiny smile she was urgently trying to keep alive the whole night suddenly faded. “I don’t wanna be.” She mumbled. She didn't have a mood for this. She didn't want to be forced into things she didn't want to do.

With that answer, she left Lapis frozen. This is not the Spinel she knew. It used to be so much fun with her, but now Spinel didn’t find the things she used to enjoy meaningful. They were simply not worth doing – even with her friends.

‘_And all because of that stupid ex_!’ Lapis had no idea if she should continue trying or already give up. She was just trying to help, but it wasn’t getting anywhere like this.

“… I’m not getting that statue.” Spinel concluded and turned her head back to Lapis to make it clear.

The blue-haired girl frowned, sighing and giving the statue a brief look. She clenched her fists and then gave Spinel an upset look. She was a bit disappointed. She stared into her eyes for a while. “If you’re not, then I am.” She stated and walked towards the golden angel.

Lapis was mad and sad at the same time because Spinel was rejecting all the helping hands she was giving her. She didn’t even want to give it a chance. Lapis knew that she was broken-hearted and that she wasn't in a mood, but the more she should try to distract herself, right?

Lapis then shook that feeling off. She didn’t want this to ruin her own mood. She was going to have fun whether Spinel wanted to join or not.

She stood in front of the car, inhaling and exhaling through her nose, fists still clenched. She looked at the statue, watching it closely, scanning over it from the top to the bottom. Then suddenly, Lapis kicked the statue off of the hood, but knocked it off so clumsily that the statue made a small crack on the windshield which made the car alarm go on.

The blue-haired girl stiffened in an instant, eyes wide in alert. The others turned around immediately, frozen in shock.

‘_Shit_!’ Lapis cursed to herself, looking at the girls and grinning stupidly. “… Guess my job here is done now. Run!” She called, grabbed the statue and dashed away as fast as she could before being spotted, following the group down the hill.

Several blocks away the alarm faded away and the streets became quiet again, however the girls still kept their pace swift.

Wandering through the outskirts, Lapis kept vaunting her trophy, pointing up how clean and precious her work was. She carried the statue in her hands, investigating it with her fingers, gently brushing over the golden polish. What a pretty statue, Lapis smiled proudly. She had another piece into her collection – if Jasper weren’t up to steal it from her again.

<•••>

“… Lapis?” Spinel raised her head once they hit the staircase of her house.

“Yeah?” The blue-haired girl looked at her. Amethyst and Jasper meanwhile entered the building.

Spinel sighed a little, briefly looking aside and then back at Lapis. “I’m sorry.” She whispered.

“What’s that?” Lapis’ brows rose. She stopped on the third step, putting her hand onto the staircase railing.

“I’m really trying to have fun…” She paused for a while and sighed again. She hoped it wasn't alcohol speaking now. “I know you’re trying to distract me… and I really appreciate it, but… it’s just hard, you know?”

Lapis exhaled through her nose, yet there was a little sympathetic smile on her lips. “Yeah, I get it…” The girl chuckled a little, pulling away from the railing and tossing her arm around her shoulders. “Hey, haven’t I told you that relationships suck?”

“Several times.” Spinel grinned faintly, being pulled into a tight hug.

“There, there.” Lapis patted her back, still holding the statue in her hand. “You’re gonna be fine. We’re here for you. Just give it some time.”

The girl nodded quickly, trying not to let more tears fall from her eyes, tugging Lapis yet closer to her.

“Here…” Lapis pulled back slowly after a minute, handing her friend the golden statue that she stole. “Take this.”

Spinel hesitated for a moment, but eventually took the angel from her, eyes watery. “Thank you.” She said, voice a bit cracked.

“You’re welcome.” Lapis smiled and patted Spinel’s back again. “Now come on. Let’s get to the others.”

<•••>

Even though it were two days already, Lapis kept thinking about Spinel. She was back in Ocean Town now, but still she was on Lapis’ mind.

It was Monday again and somehow Lapis managed coming to the class yet before the start. Sitting on a chair, rocking herself back and forth and looking out the window, Lapis kept thinking about Spinel’s love-story that eventually ended up with a broken heart. Lapis indeed felt sorry for whatever happened between her and that girl, but on the other hand, Lapis was convinced that if Spinel hasn’t let herself fall for that girl, none of this shit would be happening. Lapis knew there was something wrong about the whole thing – she knew it right from the start.

She grunted silently, nose wrinkled. “Relationships…” She stuck her tongue out her mouth. “Love is for the weak.” She stated, crossing her freckled arms on her chest, still looking out the window beside her. Love – even the word itself tasted bitter on her tongue. She couldn't take it into her mouth.

‘_Falling in love, pff… it’s just ridiculous._’ Lapis thought in the back of her mind, shaking her head. How can one just fall for someone? What do people need relationships for? Lapis couldn’t understand it – perhaps because she didn’t even want to. Lapis was the lone wolf – she was satisfied with herself and she didn’t need anybody else to keep her company and pamper her. Honestly, she didn’t even care about others, she didn’t care about how others feel, she didn’t care if she ever hurt someone because she felt like doing a little harm to people was fun. She just cared about herself and the few of her closest friends. She never showed the slightest hint of feelings towards anybody because she was way too proud and apathetic for it. Her heart was made of stone – showing no empathy for strangers. For her, falling in love meant becoming weak, addicted and manipulated. Lapis was better than that. She was convinced about it. She was tough. She couldn't afford falling in love – her ego and personality was way too big for it. She never showed the slightest hint of weakness. She was tenacious and no one will ever be able to break her.

The girl frowned, but there was a confident smile on her face because there was nothing and no one that could prove her wro…

“Good morning, students.” A faint, slightly bashful voice broke her train of thoughts. She turned her head towards it. Her breath got stuck between her lungs and throat for a second.

The new professor came into the class with arms full of big rolled up papers. A little clumsily then, she put them onto the professor’s desk, some of them though fell onto the ground and when the professor kneeled down to take them, two more pieces fell down from the table right onto her.

Finally, Lapis regained her breath, shaking her head quickly. With one raised brow, she watched the woman as she was fighting with the paper rolls all around her. She looked quite ridiculous and Lapis couldn’t help but grin disdainfully at that. The rest of the students had a lot to do not to burst into laughter as well.

“Whoopsie-daisy, we’ve been a little clumsy here, haven’t we?” The pale woman straightened and put the fallen paper rolls back onto the desk, giggling awkwardly, hands sweaty. She blushed, chewing her lips nervously once she noticed all the judging eyes glued to her. This was embarrassing. She swallowed, her innocent eyes darting from one student to another. She swallowed once again and to shake the nervousness off of her, she began raking through the papers on her table. She picked one of them and rolled it open, hanging it onto the whiteboard. After checking the absent and the present students, noting it into the appropriate documents, she faced the class and inhaled to gain courage, clapping her hands together.

“Today…” She began, but had to clear her throat because of her embarrassed, cracked voice. “Today, we’re going to discuss minerals that are formed by volcanic exhalations. This process of formation is also known as _pneumatolysis_…”

Lapis exhaled in annoyance, laying her chin into her palm. ‘_Jesus, why did I even bother coming?_’ She rolled her dark eyes, noting the strange term that rather sounded like a deadly curse before forgetting it.

Since she promised Peridot that the previous week was the last time she asked her for notes, Lapis now really had to pay attention to taking her own, but even after fifteen minutes, she couldn’t make it real whatsoever. She realized that taking notes was harder than she expected. The constant writing was at most exhausting and irritating. How on earth could Peridot get used to it? Paying attention all the time and noting almost every word that's fallen from the professor's lips at the same time was at Lapis' limit. She realized that she couldn't concentrate on two things at once.

Lapis made a long face, feeling hopeless already. She glanced over to her blond friend beside her. She again had twice more text in her notepad than Lapis did. Lapis didn’t know if she should just give up or give it at least one more try. She hated it, she realized because she was lazy. First of all, if she wanted to take notes, she shall pay attention to the lecturer, but that was the easier part. Way worse was the actual noting – it was just draining out her energy.

The blue-haired girl sighed, leaning back into her seat, pen tapping against the table. Maybe if she just listened, she’d remember at least something. Or perhaps she could record the speech. The problem was that the woman’s voice was rather faint to be captured from the distance.

She looked back at Peridot and slid down the last blued notebook page with her eyes, shaking her head and sputtering at the new long paragraph that Peridot in the meanwhile somehow managed to conjure up.

Lapis felt stupid. She couldn’t note even one full sentence. Crossing arms on her chest, she swung back on her chair, raising her head from her friend's notes. She didn't know what to do. What choice would require using the least of her energy? She didn't want to invest it into some stupid school stuff.

Her eyes clung onto the slim woman for a while then, but before realizing it, the “while” became much longer. Once again she was paying attention to her appearance rather than to what she was actually saying. Without perceiving it, Lapis put her chin into her palm and leaned against her elbow on the table. She was sitting still, watching the professor explaining something and pointing at particular parts of the rock structure displayed on the big paper hanging down the whiteboard. In silence, Lapis was investigating the woman's light peach bangs hemming her oval face, her short fringe partly covering her forehead and those big, kind eyes slowly blinking every so often. Those eyes were shy, but they were smiling, they were excited, Lapis perceived by focusing on them. Her pale cheeks were dusted with faint blush, her pink lips spoke passionately about the current topic, the corners of them were curled up in a sweet little smile, showing white sparkling teeth from behind them.

She watched the professor for two more minutes before finding out that she was actually staring. She then snapped herself out of the unknown state she appeared to be in by giving her head a shake. ‘_Ugh… Nevermind.’_ Lapis sighed and looked out the window just to make herself think about something else. Soon however, her eyes darted back to the woman even without intending to do so. After several moments, Lapis found out that she was watching her again. She cursed at the realization of it and pulled away from the table a bit angrily, swinging herself back on her chair.

She couldn’t tell what, but something was tugging her eyes back after every time she pulled them away from her. It was just so frustrating. Lapis didn’t mind looking at professors during lessons, but looking at this particular one was somehow different. It was disturbing Lapis for some reason. She simply couldn’t keep her eyes away for too long. The often her eyes were roaming there and back, the more Lapis was becoming angry because of it. She didn’t want to look at her, but she couldn’t stop herself from doing it.

She shook her head furiously after the seventh time of looking away. ‘_Okay, that’s enough._’ Upset, she turned towards the window next to her, crossing arms under her chin and laying down onto the windowsill, staring outside and trying not to think about her or the whatever damn thing that was just going on, though it didn’t stick for too long. The desire of looking back was strong, though Lapis did her best in forbidding herself from giving the professor a single glance. And she was successful… For a moment. The position she was in wasn’t exactly pleasant and she had to straighten in her chair.

She then exhaled and leaned against her elbows over the table, staring at her empty sheet. Lapis thought that listening to that woman might be a good idea instead of noting and having her nose stuck in the papers, but she was wrong. She couldn’t do even that. She struggled to pay attention to the words she was saying for too long because Lapis always got lost in those light blue eyes while listening and looking at that woman, causing the words that came in through one ear going out through the other.

She growled. ‘_That's it!_’ She kicked herself mentally, shaking her head once more to get out of this odd daze. ‘_Get yourself together_.’ She said to herself firmly and frowned, but once she raised her head from the table and looked forth, her eyes unexpectedly met with the professor’s ones.

Suddenly, they both froze for a second, looking straight at the other. Another and another second passed and none of them still seemed to dart away with their eyes. It felt so strange. This moment was lasting way too long for Lapis' taste.

'_What the hell is happening?'_ Lapis' heart stopped and so did her breath. Why didn’t the woman just ignore her gaze and continued the speech? It was making Lapis feel sick.

Lapis drew her eyes away as soon as it was possible, shading them embarrassingly. She could feel her cheeks turning warm. She hated it so much! Why was this happening to her? What on earth was it even supposed to be? This wasn’t her, she didn't feel like herself.

‘_What the actual fuck?! Get it together, Lapis!_’ She cursed in her mind, her breath rather fastened this time. She wondered if the woman was still watching her because she still hasn't heard speaking. Lapis couldn’t look at her. Not again. Not a hundredth time today.

Finally, Lapis’ tense eased a little once she heard the professor talking again, but still she couldn’t shake off the odd feeling off of herself. Her stomach twisted. She became nervous and that made her upset. She was never nervous. She was a confident, proud person. This feeling was completely new to her and that made her feel uneasy because she couldn’t control it and mainly she didn't know what it was.

She bit down at her lip, running her hand through her short blue hair. She took a deep breath and straightened in her back, closing her eyes. ‘_Okay, just calm down. Everything’s fine… This is just one big mindfuck.’_

Lapis didn’t have courage to open her eyes after this intense sequence of events. She wished it was already over. She hated this feeling. It was at most strange. She had to get out of the class – as soon as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Spinel, Lapis, Jasper and Amethyst were spending a night together  
• Lapis stole a golden angel statue from a car  
• Lapis struggled taking notes during Mineralogy class


	5. A Sign

After the end of Mineralogy class, Lapis was waiting outside the classroom for Peridot. Usually, it took Peridot about three minutes to pack all her things, but this time it felt like forever to Lapis. She was tapping her foot against the floor nervously, arms folded on her chest.

She wanted to get out of there. She wasn’t feeling herself after that strange encounter earlier. She was glancing around tensely every so often, seeming as if she were hiding something from the world.

Finally, a familiar face exited the room. Lapis let out a sigh of relief. “Ugh, finally! What took you so long?”

“So long?” The girl wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion. “I’m like… not hurrying anywhere.” She stated. Suddenly, she noticed that there was something unusual about her friend – her eyes were roaming left and right, she was chewing her lip and also nervously stepping on the spot as if she were unable leaving it.

“… Looks like you are, though.” The smaller girl remarked, brows raised.

Lapis sputtered at that, looking aside. “Whatever, let’s just get out of here already, shall we?” She gestured towards the staircase and paced towards it, not even bothering giving her friend a look after that, still biting down at her lip.

Peridot stood frozen on the spot for a second, trying to figure out what was this suspicious behavior supposed to be, but eventually she shrugged it off and followed Lapis downstairs towards the cafeteria.

Lapis wondered why she was actually waiting for Peridot when she wanted to get out of there. Also, she could very easily recognize when something was wrong with Lapis, but that wasn’t the worst part. Way worse was the fact that Peridot was used to pump information out of her so she could help her. She was simply worried about her, but today, Lapis rather wasn’t feeling like talking about whatever was going on inside her. She couldn’t understand it herself so why would she discuss it with others? No, she won’t say a thing. It’s just a temporary feeling, Lapis kept persuading herself. There was nothing she should worry about, though she perceived that whatever that was, it wasn't the first time it happened in the past two weeks.

Lapis entered the dining hall, stepping into the line before Peridot, taking a tray and reading through the menu. Peridot instead was trying to find out what was different about Lapis today – she was acting suspicious and Peridot couldn’t figure the situation out for some reason. She took a closer look at her expression, totally ignoring the menu list and shifting her tray further the line.

Lapis noticed her suspecting gaze with a corner of her eye and so she tried her best to look casual and avoid looking directly at her if possible. However, these measures didn't work for too long.

“Is everything okay, Lapis? You seem… not like yourself.” The blonde asked eventually because she couldn't hold it anymore, taking a fruit salad.

At that moment, Lapis swallowed. Oh no, there it was. She had to come up with something very quick – some good lie. She really wasn't ready and not even able to talk about whatever she was feeling. “I’m on the rag.” She said, but obviously she wasn’t convincing enough for her friend to stop asking more questions.

Peridot frowned in confusion, getting some puzzle pieces together in her head for a second or two. “… The second time this month?”

Lapis then stiffened, realizing that she used this lie two weeks ago already. “Uuuh… yeah! It’s quite irregular these days.” She giggled nervously, shifting with the line.

Her friend hummed, thinking for a moment, then she took a plate with one of the main meals. “Lapis, I’m not like… your period calendar, but if you had your days two weeks ago, you should still be fine for the next two. Maybe you should consider visiting a gynecologist if it keeps going like this.”

‘_A gynecologist? Wow, sure_.’ Lapis’ face twisted in reluctance. She hated those unpleasant preventive check-ups. It’s actually been three years since her last visit and she was willing to let it stay like that. “I’ll think about that.” She said, pretending as if she agreed even though she put the thought behind yet before she finished the sentence.

They got to the end of the line. Lapis filled her plastic cup with ice tea and then picked her tray up from the counter.

Peridot gave her a look, putting her cup onto her tray, and headed to her friend. “Um, Lapis?”

“Yeah?” She blinked, following Peridot towards a line of empty tables.

“I-uh… I gotta discuss something with Aqua.” She announced and slowed down, waiting for Lapis to catch up.

Instantly, Lapis knew where Peridot was heading with that. She didn’t need any more hints to realize that it was time for them to split again. “Yeah, sure.” She shrugged.

Peridot locked her mouth in a tight line for a second, feeling a bit bad for leaving Lapis like that when she was waiting for her after the class. “… Hey, I don’t want you to feel like I don’t want you there. It’s just… you know… you and Aqua.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” She assured her, though she was rolling her eyes in the back of her mind. “I’m fine.”

Peridot exhaled through her nose. She could sense Lapis’ disappointment behind the mask on her face. “Okay… I’ll see you later then?”

“Sure.” Lapis nodded.

She watched her friend walking away then, leaving Lapis alone with the distress within. Lapis never minded being alone, but now she felt somehow empty, as if she were missing something, feeling as if she needed company. She didn't want to stay alone with her feelings or whatever people call it.

Still, she was standing on the spot, eyes glued to Peridot as she was sitting at one of the tables on the opposite side of the room. Soon she spotted Aquamarine sitting down cross-legged at the very same table. Instead of a tray, she was holding some papers in her hands which she then put onto the tabletop. She seemed quite frustrated to Lapis once she started speaking. Suddenly, Lapis remembered the last Tuesday’s incident with Aquamarine’s bra. Suddenly, it drew a mischievous smile on Lapis face. She wondered if that was the reason why Aquamarine was gesticulating so passionately while explaining something to her friend across the table.

Lapis remembered to stay cool and if possible not looking at the girl too much in effort not to be suspected from something in case Aquamarine’s eyes turned her direction.

Finally, Lapis moved from the spot and sat at the table that had a great view of those two on the other side of the cafeteria.

She took the cutlery into her hands and started off with broccoli – Lapis loved it very much. She bit on it, chewed it slowly and enjoyed its taste. Occasionally, she threw a look at Peridot and Aquamarine. Lapis assumed that the girl with blue bob cut began acquainting Peridot with particular things written in the papers, pointing at certain articles and lines, and she seemed quite urgent and passionate about them, too. If she were going to continue like this, the papers that she was sticking under Peridot’s nose would soon be about to touch the surface of her soup.

Lapis grinned at that idea and put a few chips into her mouth. She wondered what could possibly be stated in there.

Once Peridot finished her meal, she pushed her tray aside, put her pen out her backpack and began signing the papers.

The mouthful Lapis just swallowed got stuck at her throat on its way down as soon as the pen touched the paper. For a moment, Lapis had a hard time not to suffocate herself.

Great, more trouble written onto the list. What on earth was Peridot doing? Why would she voluntarily sign something that came from Aquamarine's hands? Why would Peridot sell her soul to the devil? No, whatever that was, it wasn't going to end well – it just couldn't.

Eventually, Lapis managed to get rid of the lump in her throat. She swallowed hard, breathing again.

She was staring at her friend in disbelief, almost crushing the cutlery in her hands. She couldn’t believe what she just saw. Lapis needed to ask Peridot what that was all about. She needed to know even though she didn't exactly want to deal with this business. She couldn't let it be just like that though, especially when Aquamarine was involved in it. Lapis wanted answers. Once Peridot comes to the dorm tonight, they’re going to have a really long talk. Lapis swore.

<•••>

This day was quite intense and Lapis was looking forward to exit the college grounds. She needed a break, she needed to talk to someone normal or just do anything that would distract her from the thoughts in her head. First thing that came to her mind was calling Jasper and eventually they agreed on having a cup of tea at their favorite teahouse on Beach City outskirts. Lapis didn’t tell her anything about today though. She just needed to cool down and forget about everything and spending time with Jasper was always a good remedy for similar situations.

Once Lapis arrived, she skipped down several stairs leading to the underground teahouse. She opened the heavy wooden door and immediately a pleasant smell of hookah smoke welcomed her. The tearoom was homely cozy and darkish, just a few candles were shining through the dark. Lapis walked through a short corridor hemmed with Japanese dining sets, accompanied by a faint sound of eastern music. She headed straight to her and Jasper’s preferred spot at the very back corner of the tearoom. On her way there, she began taking off her earbuds and jeans jacket and once she was getting closer, she noticed that Jasper was already there, taking her place.

“Hey.” Lapis said and entered the small, railed, raised seating platform, sitting down at the low table. She threw her jacket beside her and took a brief look at Jasper, watching her smoking a water pipe. Lapis huffed then, her friend was obviously already served. “Thanks for waiting.” She said ironically.

Jasper smirked, leaving a pinkish smoke out her nostrils. “Chill it.” The strong girl said hoarsely and then dragged in, leaning back into her bean bag with an arm tossed over the low railing that was parting the raised platform from the corridor. Once she exhaled, she handed Lapis the water pipe hose. “Here, I got you strawberry flavor.”

Lapis blew her blue fringe aside arrogantly. Did Jasper really think she'd make it up to her just like that? “… How about Malaysia tiger?”

“Ordered.” Jasper stated casually as Lapis’ fringe fell back into her eyes.

“Good.” Lapis gave it another try and tossed her fringe away with a quick shake of her head, then pressed the mouth tip to her lips and inhaled. She held the smoke inside for a moment and then blew it slowly out through her mouth, enjoying it with closed eyes. Ah, she missed this delightful feeling so much. A sweet taste of red fruit clung onto her tongue immediately – she could never get enough of it. She breathed in again, exhaled and let her mind relax a bit, then inhaled again and again, eyes still closed, nerves easing. Yes, that’s what she needed.

“Hey, leave some for me, will ya?” Jasper frowned slightly once Lapis began seeming like she was going to finish all of it just by herself.

Lapis rolled her dark eyes and hung down her shoulders. She inhaled for the last time and then gave the hose back to Jasper.

In this place, the time was running slower than outside – that’s what Lapis loved about it. Sitting cross-legged, Lapis leaned back into her bean bag and stared at the ceiling for a while, hands joined in her lap. Still she was perceiving the amazing strawberry taste in her mouth. Satisfied, with a smile on her face, she breathed out and closed her eyes, sinking into the bag yet more, feeling relaxed at last. She was lying calmly on her back, breathing softly and listening to the low music. Finally, she was able to forget about her troubles and enjoy the peaceful atmosphere. She wished she could stay like this forever.

For a good couple of minutes, Lapis kept still, smiling and appreciating the moment of peace, nothing and no one could ruin this perfect moment. At least that was what she thought.

Shortly, her mind began slowly filling with thoughts. Her eyes opened a little then and once the amount of thoughts started uncontrollably growing, she had to sit up, brows furrowed.

Lapis wasn’t used to think that much mainly because she didn’t have time and space for it and also because she had practically nothing to think about. When it came to an actual thinking however, Lapis didn’t mind it, but whether she liked it or not was depending on what or who she was on her mind. This time though, she was rather annoyed due to the pair of certain things in her head that she couldn't get rid of the whole day. She never thought that she could get distracted by such things in here. How was it even possible? She was supposed to forget about them and relax!

She cursed under her nose once the mineralogy professor came to her mind. ‘_Goddamnit…_’ She clenched her teeth and grunted, letting Jasper know that something wasn’t right. Why on earth was she thinking about her – now when everything was perfect?

The blonde straightened, pulling the mouth tip away from her lips. “What’s up, woman?” She asked.

Lapis gave Jasper a brief look, but then looked away angrily. She couldn’t tell her what was bothering her simply because Lapis couldn’t understand the situation herself. What would Jasper think about her if Lapis told her about her issue with the professor? She would pretty much laugh at her, wouldn't she? She'd laugh at how weak Lapis was and how unable she was to control herself. Or perhaps she'd do otherwise and be sympathetic? In any case, Lapis couldn't tell her what was bothering her, namely about the professor. Jasper can't know, she decided. Lapis couldn’t risk it because there was her reputation at stake. Perhaps they could discuss whatever Peridot and Aquamarine were up to instead. At least she might get Ms. White out of her head for a while. Hopefully.

“Nothing, just…” She tried, giving her friend one more look, but once again Peridot and Aquamarine were replaced by someone else.

Lapis cursed to herself. The longer the woman was occupying her head, the more difficult it was for Lapis to recall what she actually wanted to say. She stiffened with her mouth slightly open, words froze on her tongue.

Jasper became impatient after several seconds though and so she decided to help Lapis speak by poking her shoulder with the hose – successfully.

Lapis shook her head then, clearing her throat, finally remembering. “It’s-it’s Peridot.” Lapis stuttered. She was mad and embarrassed and she needed to do something to get rid of that terrible feeling. She decided to take the hose from Jasper eventually and dragged in.

“Oh boy, what is it now?” Jasper asked with a sputter, grinning. She knew that Peridot was a passionate environmental activist and wondered what possible demonstration she could attend in this time.

Lapis inhaled once more, water aggressively bubbling in the hookah vase. She closed her eyes for a moment and exhaled the smoke, trying to concentrate on the conversation, though it was hard.

Her eyes opened then and yet Lapis took a moment before speaking, recalling today’s lunchtime at cafeteria. “Well, Aquamarine came up to her today with a bunch of papers and let her sign them.” She revealed.

“Ah.” Jasper rubbed her chin. “So it’s not an ecological protest?”

“I don’t think so.” The blue-haired girl shook her head, successfully forgetting about the lecturer for a moment. “But what else could it be? I mean… why on earth would she sign something?” She wondered.

Jasper then pursed her full lips and watched Lapis breathing out another cloud of fragrant smoke.

In a moment, Jasper recalled that a few days ago she, her roommate and several other people actually had a chat about Aquamarine and some of the current activities that she was involved in and maybe even collecting signs for certain business was mentioned there.

The blonde hummed and rubbed her chin again. “You know, I heard that Aqua and buncha nerds have been writing a petition for new water heater to the dorms. Perhaps she needs signs for that.” She suggested.

‘_A petition?_’ Lapis stiffened for a second while dragging in. Could this be the reason why Peridot skipped the last few of her classes? If she were a part of it then it would also explain why she kept writing something until early morning hours under the light of her table lamp. But wouldn’t she tell Lapis about it if that were the case? It wasn’t a secret, was it?

Lapis began thinking about it deeper. If the campaign were an actual thing, then having another boiler actually wouldn’t be a bad idea. Yes, Lapis would no longer be able to make jokes of Aquamarine and others in the shower room, but as she imagined taking a long, hot shower no matter how many people would be using water at the same time, she started to like that idea. For a fraction of a second, she even thought about signing that piece of paper to fulfill the goal. Lapis then considered that maybe Aquamarine wasn’t as worthless as she thought, but that certainly wasn’t the reason why she should start adoring her.

“Well, I hope it wasn’t anything that would get Peri into trouble.”

Jasper sputtered at that and leaned back into her bean, arm resting under her head. She exhaled comfortably once she settled in. “Yeah, getting in trouble is your business.”

“As you say.” Lapis nodded and gave it a chuckle.

It was about midnight as Lapis and Jasper left the teahouse. They took a long walk to dormitories, crossing the silent empty streets and dark parks of the city. Lapis has finally found a minute of peace, nothing was bothering her on their way whatsoever. A little bit dazed and wobbly from the strawberry tobacco and smoke, they were wandering through the town and laughing from the top of their lungs to things they were discussing. They crossed the stone bridge from which they used to spit at cars underneath them and continued forth, remembering the last night they spent there with Spinel and Amethyst.

The way then led them to another dark city park. Jasper pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and lit up the one she picked. She dragged in first and then offered the stick to Lapis, but she, as always, rejected it.

Lapis didn’t know why, but after their every “tea night”, Jasper became slightly playful and flirty. She used to toss her strong arm around Lapis’ shoulders, teasingly saying: “Don’t worry, little Red riding hood, I’ll protect you from the wolf in the dark.” She then used to pull her closer to herself or place her hand onto Lapis’ butt. Often, she even whispered something naughty into Lapis’ ear or bit it instead once Lapis took the bait.

One could say that Jasper was quite interested in Lapis, and it wasn’t even too far from the truth, but Jasper knew that they wouldn’t come too far since Lapis wasn't into bonding. Even though Lapis really enjoyed being treated this lascivious and affectionate way, they pretty much considered themselves just as friends with benefits. Simply put they always got what they wanted and did whatever dirty activities they desired, satisfied and totally unbound. Even though Jasper would be interested in something more, she respected Lapis' choice and enjoyed even "the little" that they had. Perhaps it was even more convenient.

Jasper opened the dormitory main door for Lapis and let her enter the building first, and as she was passing her, Jasper gave her butt a fine slap.

“Ouch! Calm down, dude.” Lapis frowned, although she was hugely grinning. Their occasional evening talks always turned Lapis on. Jasper was naturally funny, confident and quite seductive person, so it was naturally easy for her to get Lapis where she wanted her.

The dormitory hallways were already dark, only the staircase passage was lit up. They walked upstairs and of course Jasper let Lapis lead the way so she could get a good view at her from below. Once Lapis hit the floor, she fished a bunch of keys from her pocket and headed to the left towards her dorm through the corridor. Jasper’s room, on the other hand, was almost next to the staircase.

The blonde stepped in front of her dorm. Before letting her blue-haired friend make another step further the hallway, she addressed her. “Hey, Lapis.” She said in a deep, tempting voice.

Lapis turned to her before she inserting the key into the keyhole. “Hm?”

Instead of an answer, Jasper pulled out her keys and then picked the appropriate one to unlock the door. She gave Lapis one long inviting look, a foxy smirk was drawn on her face, and while her feral eyes kept staring at the girl, she cautiously inserted the key into the keyhole of her dorm door. For Lapis’ taste, she was pushing the key in for quite a long time and it even seemed as if Jasper repeated the action of slowly moving the key in and out several times as if to indicate something. Shortly, Lapis could guess exactly what was on Jasper’s mind and she also found that idea as quite tempting, but first Lapis minded giving this little game a suitable prelude.

“What is it, dear? Are you struggling to open the door?” She teased, putting her hands onto her hips.

Jasper smirked at that. She loved this kind of humor of hers. She gave it a deep, amused hum. “Very funny.”

Lapis ran her hand through her ocean blue mane flirtatiously, pulling her fringe back towards her nape.

Lapis’ confident and seductive smile was setting Jasper on fire. She could never get enough of it. She needed more of it – now.

Finally, she put the key in and unlocked the door, opening it wide. “How about… extending our night a little bit?” She suggested.

Lapis knew she’d ask and eventually she got what she wanted. Lapis was so grateful that she wasn’t a kid. She didn’t have to bother asking her parents if she could spend a night at her friend’s place anymore. Another thing that was playing into her hands was the fact that Peridot was surely deeply asleep and waking her with key rustling and door opening would be such a shame, wouldn't it?

The sound of her offer was caressing Lapis’ ears and she’d be more than pleased to accept it, though there still was a little problem – Jasper had a roommate, too.

Lapis hummed. “… How about Bismuth?”

The blonde sputtered at that question, waving it off and leaning against the doorframe. “I wouldn’t ask you if she were in, would I?”

Suddenly, a huge smirk curled up on Lapis’ lips. She put the keys back into her pocket and walked back to her friend.

“Otherwise I’m pretty sure she’d join us.” Jasper then added, snorting and letting Lapis in.

Lapis froze on her way in for a second, wrinkling her brows, though she still had a grin on her face. “Dude…” She chuckled, imagining them two and Bismuth all together.

Instead of a direct response, Jasper just patted Lapis’ bottom, telling her to go on in. “Now hop in, baby. We don’t have all night.” She whispered and her smile yet widened. Once they were both in, the taller girl closed the door silently and locked behind herself.

“I believe we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Lapis caught Peridot signing some papers from Aquamarine  
• Jasper and Lapis were hanging out at a teahouse


	6. Passionate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:**  
• sexual content

As soon as the room became dark, the atmosphere turned more intimate. The feeling of lust inside Jasper suddenly grew. She licked her lips, veins pulsing wildly under her skin.

Lapis made her way to the opposite side of the room and sat onto the table standing right under the window, shrugging her shoulders seductively, enticing Jasper to come.

A foxy smile curled up on Jasper’s face and immediately she headed towards the girl’s silhouette. On her way there, Lapis began undressing from her jeans jacket in a slow pace, but once Jasper stepped in front of her, she didn’t hesitate and helped her out of it, throwing it away.

Lapis straddled slowly, inviting Jasper into her personal space. She left a tiny little gasp out of her mouth as Jasper’s pelvis made a contact with her crotch, pressing lightly at it at first, then pushing a little harder.

Jasper’s strong arms were wrapped around Lapis’ waist then, forcing Lapis to put her own arms around the other’s neck. Passionately, Jasper began stealing kisses from her, sucking hungrily at her lips and stretching them as she pleased. Eventually, it turned into biting rather than an actual kissing, but that was simply Jasper’s style. On the other hand, Lapis wasn’t a big fan of this technique and not even kissing itself. Biting always annoyed her and she just couldn’t develop a taste for it, especially when Jasper kept doing it even though Lapis always told her not to.

Lapis growled once her bottom lip was clasped in Jasper’s teeth again. She pushed her away from herself a little, frowning. “_Every_-_single_-_time_ I tell you not to do it and _what_ do you do?”

“Shut up.” Jasper snorted and leaned back to her, tenderly sliding her hands along her thighs and taking her butt into them, giving it a squeeze. “You love when I bite your lips.”

Lapis glared at her for a second or so even though Jasper couldn’t really see it in the dark, leaning back with her palms against the table. “Maybe… but this is the wrong pair.” She proclaimed, sounding way too casual.

Jasper flushed red instantly and began snickering after a moment, getting the ambiguity. “Hohoho, slow down, tigress. I’m not that far yet.”

Lapis gave it an amused smirk and shortly Jasper’s big hands began circling over her loins and back, pulling Lapis closer to her strong body, kissing her mouth hungrily again. After a while, her hands traveled from Lapis' shoulder blades towards her torso and started massaging her breasts while her lips began shifting to her jaw. She nibbled on it for a moment, planting tiny kisses there on her way to Lapis’ pierced ear, biting and licking it breathily, breathing into it and whispering naughty words, sending goosebumps down Lapis' spine. Jasper continued lower towards her neck and began kissing it deeply, sucking it and stretching her skin.

Although Lapis really enjoyed it, she always tried not to show it because these two were way too competitive in becoming the dominant one and she knew that letting Jasper know about it would only build her confidence, so she decided to stay cool and let Jasper try harder.

The blonde’s fingers slowly travelled from her chest down along Lapis’ abs and cautiously they slipped under her shirt, rubbing her belly for a bit before deciding to roll the piece of clothing up. Lapis then let the girl take the shirt off and once it was thrown away, Jasper reached out for Lapis' laced bra and began undoing it, joining her lips once more, nuzzling them and trying to make them open. Once she managed that, she let her tongue slip into Lapis’ mouth, provoking her with it. Jasper could still perceive the strawberry taste that was clung onto it while their tongues were swirling round and round and dancing together. It was so sweet, so delicious. Jasper wanted more.

The last button on Lapis’ bra clicked and the taller girl was finally able to remove it from her, tossing it somewhere into the dark. Right after that, the blonde grabbed Lapis’ perky breasts into her hands and started squeezing them greedily while their tongues were still fighting. She kept massaging them, pushing them up and down, squeezing the two nipples between her digits, twisting them and pinching.

Shivers ran down Lapis’ back as Jasper bent slightly in her knees and tasted one of the buttons, swirling her tongue around it and gradually increasing the speed and pressure while her hand was toying with the other one.

Lapis had a hard time staying silent and cool after that. She was humming softly in delight, but still she was keeping the volume low. She wanted to save something for later if Jasper were good enough for it.

She grabbed on Jasper’s sweatshirt along with the shirt under it and rolled them up, then took them off of her and tossed the clothes away. After this quick maneuver, Jasper continued in the unfinished work, but this time she moved to the other side – it deserved a good treatment as well, however, Lapis seemed like she still wasn’t finished. She wanted to remove Jasper’s bra, but before she managed that, Jasper was shifting lower again, her tongue was slipping down Lapis’ belly until the blonde’s knees hit the floor. Her fingers hooked onto the hem of Lapis’ pants and along with her panties she began stripping the girl out of the two pieces of clothes, slowly revealing Lapis’ crotch, thighs, knees and ankles. Her clothes then disappeared in the darkness. Jasper gripped Lapis' legs, shifting her to the edge of the desk and kneeling up onto her knees so she could reach one particular spot.

Lapis’ head tilted backwards once she perceived Jasper’s hot tongue brushing her skin for the first time. She left a few kisses there, but soon returned back to stroking her bottom lips with her tongue. With time going on and on, Jasper became pressing harder at her, licking her crotch faster and more greedily. She even took Lapis’ legs and tossed them over her shoulders to have a better access to her.

Lapis gasped several times, although she was trying not to do so. Her fists clenched on the table as Jasper’s lips sank deeper into her, sucking at her wet folds and smacking. She hissed in through her teeth in pleasure, slowly losing control of her mind.

“What is it, darling? Do we like it?” Jasper pulled away a little bit, brows raised. Confident smile played on her lips for a while, then she kissed Lapis' wet, swollen skin several times, sucking it passionately and giving it a few fine strokes.

“Pha!” Lapis let out breathily. “Are you even touching me? I can’t feel anything.” She grinned.

Jasper’s smile widened then. Did she want to challenge her? Fine, she asked for it.

She knew that Lapis loved it and that she longed for more, but her pride simply didn’t want to let her admit it. Jasper could tell – Lapis was wet and shivering, gasping. She was just pretending as if Jasper wasn’t worth a single moan, but that’s what Jasper liked about their little games. She could see how Lapis was melting to her lips and silently aching for more.

The tall woman removed Lapis’ legs from her shoulders then and stood up, drawing their noses together. “We are a little bit cheeky over here, aren’t we?” She whispered hoarsely into her face and started drawing little circles on Lapis’ pulsing underbelly with her fingers.

“We are acting a little bit bossy over here, aren’t we?” Lapis whispered back insolently, sniggering. She bit onto her own lip, swallowing Jasper with her eyes, provoking her because she knew that Jasper loved this attitude of hers and that she was surely about to punish her for her nasty behavior.

Suddenly, Jasper’s thick fingers travelled lower, tenderly stroking Lapis’ outer folds, not going further in effort to tease her a bit. "Bad girls don't deserve good treatment, you know?" She hummed amusedly.

"Save these for someone else, will ya?" Lapis suggested, gasping into her mouth, slowly falling for her fingers. God, the feeling was so intense, so wonderful! Lapis wanted more… No, she couldn't. Lapis didn’t want to lose to her fingers again. She didn't want to fall for it. She had to fight. She needed to do something and luckily she got an idea.

First, she took Jasper by her jaw and pulled her into a kiss because she believed it would distract her for a moment. Then, Lapis reached for her bra and undid it, letting it fall down. She certainly had a thing for big breasts and she quite liked Jasper’s, too. She in general was rather into strong-built women. What a shame Lapis wasn’t interested romantically in them or any other, but she surely liked to “work” on them. Besides, she was Lapis Lazuli – she always got what she asked for and she could have any woman she’d point at. What else was there to say, she was charismatic and a professional heartbreaker.

Lapis took the girl’s breasts into her hands, squeezing them firmly and giving them nice massage, grasping one and then the other, then pressing both of them at once and repeating the action until she heard Jasper humming.

The tall girl knew where she was heading with it though and she certainly didn’t want to make Lapis happy by falling for it. Even though she loved it, she decided to fight back.

Jasper then joined the two of her longest fingers together and started stroking Lapis’ inner folds this time, working slowly to arouse her a little bit more. She wanted to tease her and toy with her a little because she knew that if she keeps going like this then her victory is guaranteed.

Lapis was fighting very well, but as soon as Jasper’s fingers sank deep into her, she knew the battle was lost.

Lapis woke up to sharp sunrays peeking in through plastic shutters. With narrowed eyes, she glanced round the room while lying on her side. There were many pieces of clothes all across the floor, she noticed, it was calm and the air was pleasantly warm in there. After a moment, she decided to check the time, but as she tried to reach for her phone down beside the bed, she realized that Jasper’s big arm was forbidding her from it. She was snuggled to her back, skin at skin. Lapis could feel the blonde’s hot breath at the back of her neck and her arm pulling her towards her body. She could barely move.

‘_Ah, come on_.’ Lapis sighed. She just wanted to make sure that she hasn’t missed her afternoon classes yet, but she could do nothing about it until her mobile phone was out of her reach. She had no idea what time it was, but she hoped that there was enough of it so she could visit the swimming pool before the classes start.

“Jasper.” She turned towards her in her arms and tried to push her away. “Let go of me.”

Jasper replied with an unsatisfied growl, but didn’t bother moving a muscle.

“Come on, don’t pretend you’re asleep.” Lapis huffed and tossed the arm that was around her away, sitting up. She then reached for her phone and once she unlocked the screen, she read 12 AM. Good, she still had some free time to spend at the swimming pool, but she'd better hurry before she runs out of it – no more sleeping that was.

She stood up then and began picking her clothes from the ground, dressing up, tossing her jacket over her shoulder and leaving Jasper alone. She headed to her dorm, wondering if Peridot was in, but when she entered, the room was completely empty.

Staring into the empty room, Lapis realized that she completely forgot to ask Peridot about the petition yesterday due to certain things that occurred that night, but Lapis eventually shrugged at that. Never mind, she’ll ask her later today perhaps.

The blue-haired girl took her sport bag from the shared cabinet, grabbed the things she needed and headed towards the swimming pool.

It was quiet in the swimming hall, Lapis perceived as she entered it. Today, there were just a few people – which Lapis appreciated. She put on her swimming cap and glasses and entered the pool. She tried out several types of strokes while swimming there and back, but mostly she was crawling. Then, she spent some time floating freely on the surface, letting the cool water flap against her ears, eyes closed and limbs spreads.

She really enjoyed herself there, but unfortunately the time was running horribly fast to her and she had to make her way back to dormitories and get ready for the classes.

Putting her earbuds on, she skated to the college, certainly taking her time even though she didn’t have much of it. Eventually, she didn’t even mind that she was more than ten minutes late – and it seemed like the professor got used to her late arrivals, too.

She entered the classroom and sat on one of the chair, but didn’t bother taking out her notepad or such. She was also quite tired, but she tried her best to stay awake. After a couple of minutes trying to stay vigilant however, she dozed off and remembered a whole nothing from the lesson. At least she gathered some energy for the next one.

Once the last class ended, Lapis packed all her belongings and headed home. The weather rapidly changed during the last four hours that she spent at school. Clouds became big, dark and heavy and rain started pouring down on Beach City.

Lapis skated to the dormitories as fast as she could, though she couldn’t avoid the rain. She arrived trembling and soaked, heading upstairs while carrying her skateboard under her arm. She needed to take a shower, she thought to herself as she was opening the door of her dorm. She just hoped that no one was showering at the moment so she could take a nice, hot, long shower.

She creaked the door open and immediately spotted a familiar face. It was Peridot, sitting at her writing desk on the right side of the room, almost invisible in the sea of papers all around her.

The room was quiet and rather dark, only Peridot’s table lamp was on. It was making the atmosphere nicely cozy.

“Hey, Dot.” Lapis greeted and closed the door.

“Hey.” The girl said, but didn’t look at her. She was concentrating on the papers in front of her instead.

Lapis wondered what these were – could Peridot be working on the petition? Lapis had to ask her, but first she had to take the shower.

The blue-haired girl walked pass her friend and started undressing from the wet clothes, putting all the pieces onto a heating radiator, then she wrapped herself in a towel and headed to the shower room. Fortunately for her, someone was just leaving it and Lapis had the whole room for herself.

It was such a pleasant moment, feeling hot water running down her shivering body. She washed her hair then and spent the next fifteen minutes rubbing herself clean. She’d stay even longer, but she was curious about what Peridot was up to, so she turned the water off and then made her way back to the dorm.

It seemed like Peridot was still in the same position as Lapis left her. She only managed to swap her legs during the time she was gone.

Lapis put on fresh clothes and sat onto her bed, crossing legs under herself and leaning her back against the wall. She watched her friend for a moment with hands joined in her lap.

Peridot was concentrated, leaning over the table and writing. She didn’t make a single noise until she began crossing out something that she just wrote, frustrated.

Lapis chuckled at that, shaking her head. “Watcha doing, Peri?”

It took Peridot a moment before she read over the article so she could answer. “Nothing much.”

Lapis’ mouth locked in a tight line, eyebrows raised. “Okay?” She said, toying with a wet lock of hair.

She expected Peridot to tell her a little bit more than just this since she was naturally talkative, but obviously Lapis had to try harder if she wanted to know more. Although she knew that Peridot was barely able to pay attention to surroundings when she was working on something, she had to give it one more chance. Suspecting, she was wondering if she was working on the petition at the moment and if she were, Lapis wanted to know why she didn’t tell her anything about it. She felt quite offended, she needed to know the reason.

“So… what is it? Some schoolwork?” Lapis threw the bait, leaning to a side to get a better view on the papers. She didn't know why, but the longer she was waiting for the answer, the more she was convinced that she was actually working on the water heater petition. She couldn't tell the reason. She could just feel it and thanks to it she was more eager to know.

Peridot sighed. “Not now, Lapis… I’m trying to concentrate.” She waved her off and began reading the article from the start again.

Lapis’ eyes rolled. She smacked and crossed arms on her chest. Okay, so this wasn’t the right way of getting the answer.

She couldn’t understand why her best friend wouldn’t tell her about the campaign. She would remember it if she did, right? Or was Peridot hiding it from her for no reason?

She let Peridot work then and tried to get distracted with her smart phone for a while. She got a message from Jasper saying: “You left without saying goodbye? I’m disappointed…” Well yeah, that was right, but Lapis didn’t give a damn about it. She just chortled at it.

Even though Lapis was doing great in distracting herself for a fairly long time, she couldn’t hold it anymore. What was taking the blonde so long?

“Peridot?” Lapis addressed her, putting her phone aside.

“… Hm?” She reacted after a while, but still she was staring into those papers.

“I wanna ask you something.” Lapis proclaimed, crossing her arms again.

The blonde sighed again. “Can’t you see I’m working over here, Lapis? Can’t it wait for a couple of minutes?”

“No.” Lapis said firmly which made Peridot freeze for a second. This approach surprised her. According to the tone in her voice, Peridot guessed that Lapis was actually talking serious which was a bit rare.

She raised her light brows and took a deep breath. “Very well then.” She said, but despite this, she continued in writing, back still turned towards her friend. “What’s on your chest?”

Lapis cleared her throat and straightened in her back. “You know, I heard that some students were putting together a petition for a new boiler to the girls’ dorms… Do you, _perhaps_, know anything about it?” She asked, giving it a slight hint of irony.

Peridot stiffened right after that, her pen glued to the paper, her pupils shrank. Extremely slow, she put the pen aside and inhaled through her nose, staring at the wall in front of her. After a couple of seconds, she turned on her chair towards Lapis, eyes unreadable. “… You gotta be _kidding_ me right now.” She looked at her with an unclassifiable expression. Blood in her veins began bubbling, a thick vein popped up at her temple all of a sudden, eyes wide and piercing, sending shivers down Lapis’ spine.

‘_O-oh_.’ Lapis thought to herself while watching those green murderous eyes. Suddenly, the whole situation turned around and Lapis’ conviction was gone. Things turned out not to go according to her plan, Lapis assumed due to the glare that Peridot was giving her. Something was certainly wrong.

“Seriously, Lapis… could you stop pretending being an _idiot_?” She gestured.

Lapis frowned in confusion. “What did I say?” She shrugged, but right after that she realized that this was probably the worst question she could come up with.

“Jesus, Lapis!” Peridot shifted her glasses upper her nose and started gesticulating angrily, standing up from the chair. “I told you at least _ten times_ that I and Aqua have been writing that goddamn petition since February! Are you _ever_ listening to what I say?!” She barked at her, having a good reason for it.

Well, maybe Peridot got a point at this. Lapis wasn’t listening to her quite often because she kept talking about things that normal people couldn’t understand – mostly some technical terminology or terms related to chemistry, math or physics. Of course Lapis let that garbage out of her head as soon as it got in. So it was fairly possible that she missed even the moment when Peridot was talking about the petition while Lapis was successfully filtering all the information coming into her ears. Whoops. What an embarrassment…

Lapis couldn’t argue with Peridot about her statement being right or wrong though because it always ended up bad for her. Peridot always won the fight, mostly because Lapis' idiocy and eternal inattention was in a way contributing into it. She knew that she could do nothing but admit that Peridot was right and accept the loss. She couldn’t risk another decrease of her ego by losing another argument to her.

“Oh, ahaha…” Lapis scratched her nape embarrassingly. “Well, I-uh… it totally must’ve slipped my mind!” She grinned stupidly.

“Well, duh!” Peridot spat, making Lapis jerk. She palmed her flushed face and grumbled, trying to cool down. At times, Lapis managed to cross the line quite far for her taste and because of that Peridot had a hard time controlling her anger. Sometimes, Lapis' behavior was just so irritating!

The smaller girl inhaled deeply, clapping her hands together and closing her eyes.

Lapis felt quite bad and guilty for causing this, especially when she could see what it was doing with her friend. She went silent, watching Peridot and waiting for the situation to settle down a bit. She knew very well that she was getting on Peridot’s nerves from time to time, but she was simply incorrigible. She still couldn't believe that Peridot remained being friends with her despite all the hassles they've been through.

“… I’m sorry, Peri.” Lapis whispered carefully, trying to avoid a possible explosion.

Peridot took another deep breath, putting her hands onto her hips, and looked out the window. “Don’t apologize, just…” She shook her head, rubbing at her eyes.

Lapis watched Peridot sitting back on her chair and breathing in deeply. The girl turned towards the writing desk then again and started filing the papers into two small piles.

“So…” Lapis began cautiously. “Is that it? The petition?” She stood up and walked to her friend.

Peridot cleared her throat. “Yeah… but it’s not the final version yet.” She revealed and put one of the papers aside. The vein at her temple was slowly fading.

Lapis frowned slightly, scanning over the files. “But… I saw you signing some of these yesterday.” She beckoned towards the papers.

The girl raised her light eyebrows, recalling the lunchtime at cafeteria. “I wasn’t signing anything… Aqua just came up with her papers. She needed help with some lines.”

Lapis sputtered at that, leaning against the table. “How could someone so smart and intelligent like _her majesty_ need help?” She snorted, but the only answer she got was Peridot’s irritated expression which made her shut up immediately. The last thing she wanted right now was asking for more trouble.

“Okay, so…” Lapis swung up onto her toes and sat onto the tabletop. “When are you planning on finishing it?”

“Soon, hopefully.” Peridot sighed and started raking through the filed papers.

As Lapis watched her friend clumsily manipulating with all the papers, she wondered if putting it together on computer wouldn’t be easier rather than writing this amount of text by hand. “Why don’t you use your laptop for it?” She asked eventually.

“Trojan…” She stated simply.

Lapis sputtered again and rolled her eyes, getting back down from the table. “I told you not to download porn videos, dude.”

“_I don’t_ _download_– ugh, whatever.” She waved it off with a growl, eyes going round. She took her pen and started off with fixing up one of the articles in the paper.

Chuckling, Lapis headed to her bed, settled down in the covers and took her phone, scrolling social media and let Peridot have some peace.

The rest of the day Lapis spent lying in her bed and chatting with her friends. Peridot then went to the dormitory kitchenette and brought two cups of tea, handing one to Lapis and then getting back to work for another couple of hours.

Once the table lamp turned off, Peridot curled up in her bed and soon she dropped off. Lapis, on the other hand, kept listening to the rain long into the night until the light drumming of raindrops against the window slowly put her into sleep. Ah, what a lovely lullaby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Jasper and Lapis spent a night at Jasper's dorm  
• Lapis and Peridot talked about the petition


	7. Moving in

“Hey, have you talked to Peridot about those papers yet?” Jasper asked, leaning against a coffee vending machine.

“Yeah.” Lapis nodded, sitting on the windowsill next to the machine, swinging her legs. “It really was the boiler petition… Looks like she’s been working on it a couple months now.”

“And she didn’t bother saying anything to you?” Jasper frowned, then she looked at the plastic cup being filled with coffee.

“Apparently, I wasn’t listening when she was talking about it.” Lapis shrugged, glancing round the hallway and watching other students passing by.

“That sounds like you alright.” The taller girl chuckled, still staring at the cup, but the longer she was waiting for it to be done, the faster she was losing her patience. “God, has this thing always been this slow?”

“No, until you approached it.” Lapis snorted.

“Haha…” Jasper let out ironically, putting her hand onto her hip.

While Jasper was impatiently growling, Lapis kept monitoring the corridor. Students were hurrying to their classes, occasionally dropping a pen or notebook on their way into a classroom as they ran. Some of them were chilling in the corridor just like Jasper and Lapis, drinking coffee, talking to friends or reading books.

Everything seemed normal until suddenly Lapis spotted the “hall monitor”.

“Oh shit, look who’s coming.” Lapis let out a chortle, watching the person walking down the hall, approaching them.

“Hm?” Jasper lifted her head, then looked the same direction as her friend.

It was the college vice dean – Holly Blue Agate, also known as “sergeant”. “Don’t run in the hallway!”, “Save it for honeymoon, you two!”, “Fix your shirt!” she used to shout when something was looking out of order to her. She was sharpening her teeth to become the college dean one day. She was trying for ages – unsuccessfully, luckily for students. Until Mrs. Pizza is in charge, all students are safe. In other case, Lapis was convinced that the whole college would go up in smoke in just one week.

The middle-aged woman with two grayish hair buns walked slowly along the hall, arms folded behind her straightened back, shoulders pushed back while her chin was importantly turned up. The clapping of her heels was just as annoying as her voice once she opened her mouth. Not a single group of students she passed was left without any remark or admonition and she certainly wasn’t making an exception on Jasper and Lapis either.

“Miss Lazuli, how many times did I tell you not to sit on the windowsills here?” She clapped her heels together, eyebrows raised disdainfully.

“Five times to be exact.” Lapis recalled and grinned.

Mrs. Blue sputtered. “Then maybe you should consider thinking about what you’re doing wrong, don't you think? Anyway, don’t you two have anything better to do than sitting around like this all day long?”

“Why do you care?” The blue-haired girl rolled her eyes, showing no respect to the authority. Jasper, meanwhile, took the coffee cup from the machine and sipped from it.

Steam came out of Mrs. Holly’s nostrils at that remark, chin wrinkled. “Miss Lazuli, are you aware that the level of your impudence is quite crossing the line?”

Lapis sputtered and leaned her back against the window. “And what are you gonna do about it? Send me to Pizza again?”

“It’s Mrs. Pizza for you, miss Lazuli.” She glared at her, clenching her teeth, exhaling through her nose. “… You are very lucky. I swear if I were the dean, you’d be kicked out of this college at least ten times.”

“But you’re not.” Lapis crossed arms on her chest, smiling teasingly. “I got nothing to be worried about.”

The woman’s eyelid twitched, she tried to remain cool. She’s lost her nerves on Lapis so many times that she considered that arguing with her wasn’t worth it anymore. She sighed. “If I were you, miss Lazuli, I’d rather watch my tongue. Mrs. Pizza is going to lose patience with you one day and you are going to regret your behavior.”

Jasper snorted at that and sipped from her cup once again, leaning against the vending machine and enjoying the show.

As fast as physically possible, Mrs. Holly turned her head towards Jasper, eyes sharp. ‘_Of course, Lapis Lazuli’s ubiquitous sidekick._’ She thought to herself with an arrogant huff. “What is so funny, miss Quartz?”

In an instant, Jasper stopped giggling and sipped again. “Nothing.” She cleared her throat.

The woman narrowed her eyes, scanning over the tall girl and thinking. “… Miss Quartz, why don’t you go and help Ms. White moving those boxes into her office rather than hanging around like this? I’m sure she would appreciate it.” Mrs. Holly suggested, gesturing towards the end of the hallway where a bunch of big paper boxes were stacked.

Jasper curved her lips in annoyance for a second, leaning to a side and looking that direction, checking on the boxes. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Blue, but as you can see I’m quite busy right now.” She stated a bit insolently and raised her cup.

Mrs. Holly Blue shook her head in disbelief several times and again sighed through her nose. “You two are _just_ unbelievable. You should really think about yourselves.” She said and with that she turned on her heels and walked away.

Lapis clasped her tongue between her teeth, grinning along with Jasper while watching the vice dean leaving, proud that they got the better of her.

Jasper kept chuckling especially at the way the woman was wiggling her plump bottom while walking – it was so funny and gross at the same time, she simply couldn’t help herself.

“My god, give me a bottle of bleach.” Lapis snorted, face twisted in disgust. Jasper burst into laughter then, almost suffocating herself with coffee, but once she was out of danger, they both settled down. Lapis leaned against the window again and looked at her friend, putting her joined hands into her lap.

The blonde cleared her throat and smacked, eyeing the boxed on the other side of the corridor for a moment. “Helping with boxes? Who am I, some stupid-ass mover?" She chortled. "And who the hell is Ms. White?”

Instantly, Lapis’ heart skipped a beat or two. Her breath got stuck at her throat and her lungs shrank at the thought of the professor. She swallowed and looked to the left towards the boxes. There was no one to be seen around them so far, but just in a moment a young adult woman peeked out of the office door and bent down for one of the big moving boxes, lifting it up and taking it into the office.

Lapis swallowed hard, suddenly unable to pull her eyes away. Her chin slightly dropped while watching her. She was picking some of the boxes with difficulty, frowning, teeth clenched and back bent. She was too lean and fragile to carry such load, Lapis thought. She'd normally taunt at how desperate she looked, but she wasn't into laughing for some reason now.

“–Earth to Lapis, hallo?” Jasper waved her hand in front of her nose.

Lapis blinked several times then, shaking her head. "What?"

"Who’s that?" Jasper asked, pointing at the person. Then she took a sip of her coffee.

Lapis looked back at the woman, swallowing again. Her throat became suspiciously dry. “It’s-it’s the new mineralogy professor.”

Jasper’s thick brows rose. She lifted her hazel eyes from the cup and also watched the woman on the other side of the hall. She smiled. “Oh, so that’s her?” The girl wiggled her brows, smirking. She watched her along with Lapis for a while. The way she was manipulating with the paper boxes was amusing to her. She was quite clumsy and every so often she dropped a thing or two while carrying her belongings in.

“Pff, just look at her.” Jasper chortled. “What a weirdo.”

Lapis would totally agree with her friend and laugh at what she was seeing, but she just couldn’t do so. She felt rather sorry for her and somehow the fact that Lapis was just watching the woman fighting with those boxes and not even bothering helping her was making her feel rather uneasy.

“What a shame.” Jasper continued and sipped from her cup again. “So pretty and so… well.” She gestured towards the table calendar that she just dropped, chuckling. “But hey, she really is quite sexy in a way, isn’t she?” She then smirked and nudged her friend thanks to which Lapis panicked a little, losing her breath again, eyes wandering there and back nervously as if her secret problem with her might be revealed.

“Pff! Of course she's not.” She let out insecurely. “T-totally ordinary.” She said despite the fact that something inside her was thinking otherwise.

Quite bemused by the suspicious accent in her voice, Jasper glanced over to Lapis, and as if the taller girl could suspect what was going on, the corner of her lips curled up. She leaned over to her friend to see into her face. She couldn’t say how, but somehow she felt like there really wasn't something right with her – and not just today. Lapis would never react like this at this kind of question. Stuttering wasn’t her thing either and yet there was a slight blush on her cheeks.

‘_Sure_.’ The strong girl thought to herself, still smirking. She sipped from the cup again, playing cool. “… She looks like she could use some help though… go help her.”

Lapis stiffened for a second at that idea. “What? W-why me? I mean…” She cleared her throat to mask the sudden crack in her voice. “Why don’t _you_ go and help her yourself?” She opposed.

Jasper simply shrugged at that, lifting her cup as if to prove that it still wasn’t empty. “I’m busy.”

“Of course…” Lapis rolled her eyes, looking away from her friend, but once again gluing her eyes to the woman.

They eyed the person together then, especially Lapis. Jasper rather kept an eye on her friend instead, drinking and grinning at the expression that Lapis’ uneasiness formed on her face.

Jasper hummed in amusement. She couldn’t tell what was going on inside her, but there certainly was something that was forcing her to act like this. She wanted to toy with her a little bit – insecure Lapis was funny Lapis. “What, are you afraid you’re too weak to lift those paper boxes?” She teased.

“I’m not weak!” Lapis turned to her, frowning, cheeks dusted with pink.

Her friend chuckled at that, shrugging. “Prove it then.”

Lapis growled, turning back. “I ain’t proving anything. Just stop acting like a child.”

At that moment, Jasper began making annoying chicken noises just to provoke Lapis and kept doing these irritating noises until Lapis lost her nerves and decided to jump down from the windowsill and prove that she was not a weakling, thrusting into her friend and stomping away from her. She wasn’t weak! What was Jasper even thinking? She was going to show her.

Lapis clenched her fists and confidently she headed straight towards the woman, but the closer she was, the faster she was turning into an uptight mess. Her pace rapidly slowed down once she approached the pile of boxes. Her hands became sweaty and her heart started pounding.

‘_God, no, please._’ Lapis swallowed hard as she stepped to the woman that was just squatting in front of one of the boxes with back turned towards her. That strange feeling overcame Lapis again and the longer she was standing there, the more intensive it was, and the fact that she was standing quite too close to the woman was making it even more difficult to bear.

She couldn’t go back now. The only thing she could do was sharing a brief look with Jasper who was smiling widely and drinking her coffee several feet away from her before stepping into it.

‘_Okay, you’re doing it… just calm down. It’s nothing! It’s not a big deal. You’re just going to help her with the boxes and then you’re out of here._ ’ Lapis inhaled, chewing her lip nervously.

The student cleared her throat then in effort to get the woman’s attention, but unfortunately she started storing something from one box to another to make the first one lighter without noticing her. So the blue-haired girl tried again, nervously stepping on the spot, hands joined behind her back. She was even thinking about backing out of it for a second or two. Well, she still got time, but how awkward would the consequence be? It certainly wasn’t worth it, she thought in the end.

Still, the woman hasn’t noticed her. She put one last thing from one box into the other, then she took the first box into her arms and with a heavy groan she lifted it up, straightening in her knees. She turned around with it, but after that she thrust right into Lapis, making both of them jolt at the sudden contact.

“Oh my goodness!” The redhead gasped, stepping back. “I’m so sorry! I didn't know you were standing there.”

“Uuuh…” Lapis shook her head, coming back to herself. “N-no, worries… I-it was my fault. My bad.” She chuckled nervously, realizing that what came out of her mouth certainly weren’t words that she'd normally use.

The woman looked aside for a second with a teeny tiny smile. “Are you okay?” She asked then, looking at Lapis. Meanwhile, the brown box was becoming slightly heavy in her arms.

“Um, yeah… absolutely.” Lapis grinned, scratching her nape and clearing her throat. She had to look away then – those light eyes were making her anxious.

This moment rather turned into an embarrassing silence. Lapis suddenly ran out of words and she also totally forgot the actual reason why she was there. She hung her head and bit onto her lip, feeling quite cornered. Her temperature was rising unpleasantly fast, she noticed. Now she could perceive even her forehead sweating.

“Can I do something for you?” The professor asked after a while. Well, if there was nothing she could do for Lapis, she wouldn’t be there, right?

Lapis lifted her head. Instead of stepping nervously on the spot, she began rubbing her hands together and scratching her throat without even realizing it. “Actually, I was wondering if I could-uh… help you with these.” She gestured towards the box in the woman’s thin arms.

Her sky-blue eyes dropped down at it, but then she looked at the student and smiled sweetly. “You’re so kind… but I think I’m okay.” She said with that motherly-warm voice, but as soon as she finished the sentence, the bottom of the box suddenly ruptured and all the things that were just inside were now all across the floor, a loud bang then echoed in the hallway.

All of a sudden, Lapis could hear a familiar laughter in the distance. She turned around only to find Jasper bursting into laughter, holding her belly and wiping her eyes dry.

Lapis stared at her for a moment, sending her a bemused expression, brows frowned and lips curved in confusion. ‘_What the fuck, dude?_’ She was very ashamed of her friend and absolutely mortified. She wished she didn't know her at that moment.

Once Jasper spotted her face, she rather stopped laughing and settled down, pitifully looking away from them and finishing her cup of coffee.

“… Well.” The skinny woman eventually looked back at Lapis and giggled, brows wrinkled. “Maybe an extra pair of hands could actually come in handy.”

The blue-haired girl grabbed one of the boxes and headed into the room right next to the mineralogy classroom.

The office was spacious. Walls were hemmed with empty bookcases, shelves and cabinets. Ahead of the door, there was one great window, mahogany writing desk was placed under it with one comfy office chair for the professor and one classic chair across the desk for an eventual visitor. There also was a small storage on the right side of the room – empty as well.

Lapis put most of the boxes down along one of the long bookcases on the left, the woman, meanwhile, began unpacking her things, putting them onto shelves and storing them in cabinets. Suddenly, the room didn’t seem as empty as before once it was being filled with educational material.

It surprised Pearl how easily Lapis could lift all those heavy boxes and carry them into her new office. They moved all twelve pieces inside in no time. She smiled to herself once Lapis turned around to check if there were any more boxes left.

“Well, that should be it.” Lapis wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, putting her hands onto her hips then, facing the woman.

“Ah, thank you very much.” The professor smiled thankfully, then thought for a second or two. “… Miss Lazuli was it, am I right?”

Lapis froze in an instant after hearing her name, swallowing. It sounded… different than from other professors – her voice wasn't full of prejudices or anger, it was rather warm, honest and grateful.

The student could feel herself sweating again. Once their eyes met for just a second, breathing became a little difficult to her. “Oh-uh, y-yeah… Lapis Lazuli.” She sighed anxiously, trying not to panic, looking elsewhere but those big blue eyes now.

Lapis wasn’t feeling good. Her temperature was rising again and the longer she was standing there like that, with the woman’s eyes glued to her, the more nervous and unpleasant she was feeling.

“Lapis Lazuli…” The redhead hummed to herself with a smile.

Lapis’ ocean-deep eyes lifted. A dust of pink spread all across her cheeks as her voice echoed in her ears again. She bit hard at her lip. Her heart started pounding fast once more. ‘_Okay, that’s it. I’ve got enough_.’

She forced a smile then, slowly stepping back, straight out of the room. “Okay, I-uh… I gotta go now.”

“Oh?” The woman’s light eyebrows raised, her hands stiffened while holding a table calendar in them. “Alright then.” She paused for a moment, putting the calendar onto the dark table. “… Thank you again for helping me moving in.”

“Y-yeah, no problem.” Lapis saluted with a chuckle, turning on her heels and walking away – away from her. The sooner she’s out of there, the better. That woman was radiating odd vibes.

Totally flushed, she paced towards the staircase, passing by Jasper and totally ignoring her. Lapis had no idea what was going on with her. Even though she was already away from there, the strange feeling remained haunting her. She wanted it to stop!

Jasper frowned in confusion as she passed her, leaning against the vending machine and watching her friend growing away. “Hey, wait up!” She called and leaned away from it, following Lapis.

“Not now, Jasper.” Edgy, Lapis pushed her big hand away from her shoulder and speeded up her pace. She really wasn’t into talking to anybody right now. She needed space after all that just happened.

“Hey, what’s up, dude?” The strong girl shrugged, catching up to her and trying her luck again.

“I just need to be alone now, okay?!” She spat and clenched her fists, glaring back at Jasper.

Jasper, taken aback a little bit, stopped in the middle of the hallway. For a brief moment, they were sharing a look, but then Jasper watched as her friend was disappearing in the distance, wondering what has got into her. Was Lapis mad at her because she burst into laughter back then? Or what else could make her angry?

Eventually, the blonde decided to let it be – Lapis was moody anyway. Maybe it was better for both of them to let her be for now. Perhaps she had her days, Jasper thought. She just shrugged at that and with hands in her pockets she headed outside to have a cigarette.

Lapis went and bought herself a bottle of beer on her way to the bridge. She sat onto its thick wall and hung her feet down from it, facing the emptiness in front of her and cars far below her feet.

She opened the bottle with dormitory keys and leaned her shoulder and head against the streetlamp beside her, sipping from the bottle little by little.

She felt a little bit better now when she was outside and far from that person, but still the unknown feeling was twisting and teasing her stomach and mind. She perceived that the feeling was multiplying every time these two interacted with one another. It was getting worse and worse each time and Lapis didn’t know what to do with it. It was so frustrating and exhausting, namely because Lapis couldn’t stop thinking about it and feeling it as the time was going by. She hated it so much. She hated herself because of not being able to just let it go and stop feeling like that and especially she hated that professor because she was the main reason because of whom Lapis was feeling that way. She blamed her. If she weren't there, none of this would be happening.

Lapis took a great sip after that, drinking nearly all of the beer down. She wiped her lips dry with her sleeve, exhaled and put the bottle down, settling it in her lap.

She stared ahead, listening to cars honking aloud, watching birds crossing the sky and the sun slowly setting down, thinking about that woman – thinking about that smile she gave her today, about those tiny light ginger freckles dancing on her face, those pale fragile hands moving so gracefully while unpacking the boxes.

Lapis fisted her thigh furiously at the memory of those things and also at the possibility of this feeling being what she hoped wasn’t true, frowning at the world.

As the time went by, the anger rather turned into hopelessness. Lapis groaned, head turned up to the sky. This was just miserable. What was happening to her? What was she supposed to do? She certainly couldn’t tell anybody about it. Maybe she just had to clench her teeth and face whatever that was on her own instead of telling her friends. She could make it. Soon, it will all be over and she’s going to be fine again. It surely wasn’t a big deal… Or was it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Lapis helped Pearl moving her things into her office


	8. A Test

Lapis entered her dorm, an empty bottle of beer in her hand. She had no idea why she carried it all the way there, but she just did, throwing it into the bin once she stepped over the threshold.

She flopped down on her bed, sighing, eyes focused on the blot just above her on the ceiling.

Peridot was away which Lapis usually considered as a good thing, but now she wished she were there. Her long, boring monologs would come in handy at the moment. Lapis just wanted to think about something else than school all the time – and well, not just that.

Lapis ached for another bottle of beer, though she drank three of them already. The longer she was staring at the blot, the bigger it seemed, yet one more bottle would definitely make it dance all across the ceiling.

Suddenly, Lapis felt like taking a nap, but as soon as she closed her eyes, the door opened.

“Lapis!” Peridot grinned, carrying a box in her hands. “Look what I’ve got!”

Lapis just groaned, tossing her arm over her face. “What?” She asked hoarsely, sighing at the brilliant timing of her arrival.

“I want you to meet someone.” She said enthusiastically, coming to her friend.

“Oh boy…” Lapis rolled her eyes to herself, forcing herself to sit up. It was a very bad decision, she realized once her head started spinning.

The blonde sat next to her and opened the box. “Look at these guys! Aren’t they cute?”

Lapis’ chin dropped. “Jesus Christ… what are those supposed to be?”

“These are giant African snails! I got them from one local breeder.” The girl grinned widely, stars in her eyes. “I named them Percy and Pierre.”

Lapis’ eyes went round, recalling all the animals that Peridot unsuccessfully tried to smuggle into their dorm some time ago. She wondered if Peridot has actually talked about adopting a snail or if Lapis just wasn't paying attention to her as usual. She rather wasn't even asking. “Does the manager know about this?”

“Of course not.” She shook her head and picked one of the two snails up. “Just look at him. Isn’t Percy lovely?” She pursed her lips as if she were talking to a baby.

Lapis’ face twisted in disgust in an instant. “Dude… They’re the same. How do you know it’s just Percy?” Lapis frowned, comparing the two snails with her eyes.

“No way! Percy’s got one extra stripe right over here, see?” She clarified, sliding her finger just over the dark stripe on the snail’s shell. “Did you know that this is one of the biggest snail breeds?”

“No kidding.” Lapis raised her brow, not really surprised, watching the snail fitting perfectly inside the girl’s palm.

“Do you wanna hold him?” Peridot asked suddenly, drawing the snail to Lapis’ nose excitedly.

“N-no thanks.” She pulled back immediately, keeping her friend’s hand away from herself. The way the snail was staring at her with those long slimy eyes, yet each pointing to a different direction, was making her anxious. “Just get it away from my face, will ya? It’s gross.”

“Excuse me? The only one that’s gross over here is you.” Peridot chortled, drawing Percy back to herself.

“Well yeah, that’s nothing new.” Lapis smirked. “What are you gonna do with them?”

“I’m keeping them of course.” The blonde smiled and petted the animal.

Well, what else could Lapis expect? “Then you better keep them under a lock and key because once I find one of them crawling over my face in the middle of the night, I’m throwing it out the window. Just so you know.” The blue-haired girl stated and lied back down on the bed.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll keep a good eye on them.”

And Peridot did. The first week of taking care of those snails kept her absolutely distracted from her schoolwork. She was very excited about Percy and Pierre and could do nothing else than playing with them and studying them, but soon she sank back into books and notes anyway.

The closer Monday was, the more Lapis’ stomach was twisting. She was nervous. Just the thought of the upcoming mineralogy class was making her feel uneasy. She really wasn’t looking forward to it. She was worried about falling back into that odd state rather than the seminar itself. So far she was unable to get control of her feelings – or whatever that was. Her mind was trying to stand its ground, but Lapis had no idea that there was something way too more powerful standing against it.

It was 10 AM already and the class was about to start shortly, but Lapis was still on the fence if she should go or not. She was stepping on the spot in front of the main entrance to the college building, making another circle each time she changed her mind and began walking either to the building or the dormitories. Eventually, she stepped over the threshold of the college, walking up the stairs to the class, feet heavy and mind full of unpleasant thoughts.

The first thirty minutes of the lecture have passed and then Lapis finally arrived to the classroom. Once she closed the door behind herself, the room went silent – which made her stomach shrink. The only thing Lapis managed was stuttering “good morning” while staring at the professor’s feet. She didn’t have guts to look higher than that.

Lapis always felt important when the whole room was watching her. This time though she wished she was invisible. She felt like everyone, the whole world, could see what was going on inside her and that was making her feel vulnerable. She could sense all those eyes on her, staring, judging her. The funniest part of it was that this never bothered her before. She loved being the center of attention, but not today. Not now.

“Good morning, miss Lazuli.” The professor’s voice sounded in the room. It sent shivers down Lapis’ spine.

The student took a seat next to Peridot. She leaned against the table with her elbows, rubbing her hands together quite uneasily, not bothering looking at the woman or anyone else. Perhaps staring at the table and ignore everyone will help her not to feel too terrible.

The lecturer slowly made her way towards the teacher’s desk, watching the newcomer all the way to it, eyes narrow. She took a pen and noted another late arrival into Lapis’ box. She read through all the admonitions again. ‘_A problematic student._’ She thought to herself, shaking her head lightly and looking back at Lapis. She couldn’t quite believe it though. She recalled the day when Lapis helped her moving into her new office. It was such a lovely gesture. Maybe Lapis was a little bit of a slacker, but perhaps she had a good heart. She certainly didn’t look like someone who wouldn’t give a damn about anything.

“Now, students…” The young professor continued in her speech, straightening in her back. “Let’s talk about another type of crystal formation. This one is called a _weathering process_. Weathering processes take place on the earth's surface or in its immediate vicinity. Depending on climatic conditions there can be either mechanical or chemical weathering processes going on.”

Lapis stared at her desk, head clasped in her hands. She was thinking about taking her pen and notes, but she felt as if she were glued to both the table and her seat. She sat still, listening to the kind tone of the woman’s voice. Listening to it felt like a tender hair stroke, like a cup of cocoa in a cold winter warming one’s palms, but that was what Lapis hated about it. She hated the fact that she liked it, but she couldn’t just sit there with hands over her ears.

Staring constantly at the table was slowly becoming boring as the time was going and the desire to look up from it was growing bigger. It was insane. It was hard for Lapis not to do so and despite urgently trying to resist the temptation, she dared giving the woman a brief glance, but what shall remain just as a glance rather turned into an unplanned long look.

The way Ms. White was dressed, the way she was moving and speaking, the way she was smiling was uncontrollably turning Lapis’ freckled cheeks pink and speeding up her heart beat, making her frustrated. Lapis just couldn't look away.

The lesson seemed endless and so did Lapis’ suffering. She couldn’t stop herself from fisting the table under all the pressure, shaking her head to get rid of the overwhelming feeling, growling and clenching her teeth, nostrils wide open. She felt like a volcano just before an explosion.

Peridot noticed it, silently watching her friend fighting her battle with a corner of her eye. However, Peridot had no idea that what she saw on the outside was way more intense on the inside.

Lapis never thought that this could get this far. She could take no more. This was just too much. She was going crazy.

“… Lapis?” Suddenly, she heard a whisper from her left side. She turned her head to her friend, giving her one big desperate look.

“Are you okay?” Peridot asked, but instead of answering, Lapis looked ahead – and she regretted it instantly. Her dark blue eyes suddenly met with the light ones. She flushed deep red, her heart started pounding wild. That was it. She had to get out of there. Immediately!

She ran straight to the girls’ dormitories, leaving all doors open on her way there. She got to her dorm, unlocked the door and kicked it open. She grabbed her acoustic guitar and skateboard and ran out of the building, not even locking the room. She skated to the small city square with the guitar on her back, visited one of the grocery stores and bought two bottles of beer. She drank one of them on her way to the junkyard and saved the other one for later.

She felt like destroying something, like beating something up, screaming. She put her guitar and skateboard under the small shelter they created with Jasper and Amethyst few years ago and then she grabbed an old baseball bat that was lying on the ground, knocking down and smashing everything that was in her way.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?!” She shouted, dividing each word with a hit of the bat, thrashing old crap, car windows and everything that was in reach and eventually throwing the bat itself away. “Stop feeling like this you little fuck!” She screamed at herself, kicking into a rusty bucket and sending it far away. She even smacked herself several times in effort to wake up from this eternal nightmare, but even despite that she couldn’t stop thinking.

Lapis was desperate. She sat down on the ground and hugged her knees, head hung down. Gulping for air, she closed her eyes and tried to calm down. It took a while, but eventually the adrenaline dropped.

The girl felt like garbage. She wasn’t even thinking about coming back to the dorm. She felt like spending the night at the junkyard. It was quite late anyway.

The stars were shining above Lapis’ head as she was lying on the hood of an old pickup truck. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to be alone, away from everyone, but at the same time she didn’t because it was making her think.

In the end, she decided to stay. She used Jasper’s lighter that she carried in her pocket to start a small campfire. She played a few songs on her guitar and slowly sipped her beer until it was late enough to fall asleep.

The very next day she woke up to a light April rain. She checked her phone and found several missed phone calls and messages from Peridot. She let them be though. It was the best time to get back, pack a fresh towel and head to the swimming pool for a while to clear her mind after yesterday.

Luckily, Peridot was away at the time Lapis arrived. She really wasn’t into talking to her or anybody else. Her roommate was certainly mad and worried about Lapis not responding to any of her messages and so Lapis wanted to avoid meeting her just yet. She needed a bit of time for herself, though she couldn’t avoid Peridot forever. She was aware that she was going to get a lecture from her once they meet – again.

Lapis spent the whole day outside, wandering around the town, kicking pebbles that were in her way with hands buried in her pockets. She even skipped all her classes today. There was no way she would visit the college after yesterday. She wanted to stay away from it as far as possible and even though she was successfully distracting herself with multiple activities the whole day, she never managed to stop thinking about the woman for too long. It was such a hopeless situation and the worst thing about it was that she couldn’t tell anybody or ask for help.

Tickling the strings of her guitar, she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, leaning against the wall and murmuring to the rhythm of the low music until she heard the door opening. The noise made her turn her head towards it. The strings stiffened under her fingers.

“God, there you are!” Peridot exhaled in relief, hands full of textbooks and papers just as her backpack. “Where have you been? Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

Lapis sighed, looking away. “Don’t worry about that. I’m here now.” She said casually and started playing again, not interested in analyzing what was going on lately.

“What do you mean-_don’t worry_?” The blonde shook her head, forcing a sigh. “I'm worried about you! You were acting strange yesterday… and not just yesterday. You’re acting like that for the last few weeks. You think I haven’t noticed?" She paused for a second. "… Can't you tell me what’s going on?”

Instead of answering, Lapis began playing louder, watching her fingers moving.

Peridot, meanwhile, lost her patience and smacked her books against her desk. She was waiting for an answer for way too long. “Lapis!”

“I don’t want to talk about it now, okay?” She palmed the strings to make them stop, frowning at her friend. Wasn’t it obvious that she just didn't want to talk?

“It’s okay to just say; _hey, Peridot, I don’t have a mood for talking right now, I need to be alone_, you know?” She gesticulated dramatically.

Lapis’ nostrils widened again and her teeth clenched. She didn't have guts for this. She threw the guitar aside and stomped towards to door. “Yeah, you got _that_ right.” She growled and slammed the door behind herself. For some reason, she felt like the whole world was against her. Nobody understood her and paradoxically there was "no one" to help.

“Lapis!” Peridot called after her, but she didn’t stop her from leaving.

It wasn’t the first time they argued. Lapis never had many problems to discuss, but once some appeared, she never wanted to talk about them. Sometimes, it offended Peridot and she also felt sorry, but simply because she was worried about her friend and because she wanted to help her. If only Lapis would let her.

Lapis stood in front of Jasper’s dorm and knocked several times. She needed to cool down and spending the night with Jasper might definitely relieve her. Nobody was responding though and so she knocked again. Louder. “Jasper!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” The blue-haired girl heard from behind the door. “What’s gotten into you, man?” The tall blonde opened the door, frowning.

“Are you alone?” Lapis asked eagerly, staring into the girl’s hazel eyes.

Jasper shrugged. “Pff, I guess?”

“Then come on.” Lapis ordered and pushed Jasper back into her dorm, closing the door and locking it, shoving the girl until they reached her bed.

"Lapis, slow down.” Jasper asked, being pushed to the mattress. “What’s going on?”

“Not important.” She stated and began taking off her shirt, leaving her friend speechless. Perhaps some quality sex might help her stop constantly thinking about everything. Nothing else was helping, not even her favorite metal music, but with Jasper she might forget – at least for a while.

The night was wild indeed. Even Jasper conceded that Lapis won this round, all thanks to her adrenaline and anger that she was holding inside, and she fell asleep quite fast, too. She was exhausted from everything and everybody.

The next day, she couldn’t decide whether to go to school or not. There was a high possibility of meeting the new professor and that fact was making Lapis feel sick. However, she participated in a few of her classes and thankfully she wasn’t fortunate to meet her.

After classes, she skated to the dormitories, took a cold shower, then sat on her bed and played some tunes with her guitar again. Peridot was sitting silently at her desk across the narrow room, swimming in a sea of papers again, sucking and biting the end of her pen. The atmosphere was quite tensed because of the past two days and since afternoon they haven’t spoken a word.

Slowly, Lapis was strumming the strings, singing lyrics of the played song in her mind, letting Peridot work in peace without bothering her with her voice. Shortly, Lapis started playing another song and began thinking again. She wasn’t feeling like participating in another mineralogy lesson at all and another week was slowly closing in. It was such torture. There was no way she’d go through it again, but Lapis desperately needed notes from the classes and she wasn’t able to take them by herself. Peridot was her only hope. Lapis was way too proud to ask other students and their notes sure weren’t anything special either.

“… Peridot?” She raised her head from the strings, but kept playing.

“Hm?” She hummed, staring into her textbook, tapping the pen against the table.

The blue-haired girl sighed and looked back at her instrument, wondering if she should bother asking Peridot for her notes or not. She felt quite stupid about it, but she needed them. She shall at least give it a try. It always worked, so why wouldn’t it work now? “Do you think I could borrow your notes from the last mineralogy class?”

“Ex-excuse me, what?” She turned on her chair. Just from the tone of her voice Lapis recognized that Peridot wasn’t twice as excited about the question. Actually, it wasn’t surprising at all.

“Peri… I-I’ll make it up to you.” She tried, her fingers froze on the strings.

“You can’t be serious, Lapis.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I mean-let me get this straight, okay… you come late to the class, you _leave_ early, then you run away god-knows-where not _bothering_ answering my messages…” She counted on her fingers. “And after yesterday, storming out of the room without even telling me where you were going and appearing here the next day without saying even a stupid _hello_, you're expecting _me_ to be like; _yes, sure! You can have my notes_?”

Yes, that was a bad idea, but she understood why she was angry. Peridot cared about her way too much and ignoring her messages and avoiding her like that was unfair. Lapis knew that she was worried about her, but telling Peridot about her problem would only make everything worse. She was sure about it.

“I’m sorry, Lapis, but what are you expecting me to do?” She asked firmly, although her expression seemed rather worried.

Lapis hung down her head as an admonished puppy. She breathed out through her nose, feeling hopeless.

“… I’m sorry, but I’m not helping you this time. Two weeks ago you promised it was the last time that you were asking for them. So, _no._ Now, please stop counting on me and just start acting like an adult for a change. _You_ are responsible for your education and nobody else.” She reproached.

Lapis rather wasn’t saying anything. She was ashamed and the mixture of all these emotions inside her was making it even worse.

Peridot was right though. She couldn’t always count on somebody to be there. Lapis was an adult and it was time to take the destiny into her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Peridot brought a couple of snails to the dorm  
• Lapis ran away from the class and spent a night at junkyard  
• Lapis was given a little lecture from her roommate


	9. Too Much

Do you remember the last week when Lapis felt like not going to school? Now the feeling was thousand times worse. She started to hate Mondays, but not because it was the first day of the week, though she wished that was the real reason.

Peridot left the dorm and headed to the mineralogy class while Lapis kept lying in her bed, pretending that she was asleep, but she in fact couldn’t fall asleep the last night at all. That night was long and unbelievably stressful for someone who never dealt with such pressure. It wasn’t a problem for Lapis to skip classes from time to time, but just as everything that was happening lately, even skipping classes felt somehow strange – especially the mineralogy ones.

In effort to make herself feel better Lapis decided to skip the rest of all the upcoming mineralogy lessons. There was nothing and no one that could make her go there ever again – which was quite a problem because she wouldn’t be able to graduate like that. However, she’s got some notes and asking Peridot at least about the topics they’d discuss in classes wouldn’t be anything difficult. At least Lapis could try and study on her own, even though self studying was exactly what she swore she’d never do – simply because she was lazy and had Peridot for taking care of the textbooks and all that.

She was quite happy that she could stay and lie indolently on the bed, however, she wasn’t aware of the storm coming later this afternoon.

Once Peridot came back from her classes and spotted Lapis on the same spot as she left her, she decided that this was the straw that broke the camel's back. She slammed the door, making Lapis jerk slightly.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She glared at her roommate, trying to keep her voice calm somehow.

Lapis glanced over at her for a second. “What do you mean?” She smirked and then put her head back onto her pillow.

“Stop making an idiot out of me, Lapis. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” She stated, throwing her backpack next to her desk.

“Eh, give me a hint.” She put her hands under her head. This impudent attitude, paradoxically, usually got her out of trouble because the one that was mad at her eventually decided that arguing with her was a waste of time. So practically Lapis always won, but this time it rather seemed like the exact opposite.

“I’m talking about today’s classes.” She clarified as if Lapis truly didn’t know. “I mean-you decided to skive off lessons rather than making your lazy ass come to the college and take notes on your own? Do you seriously think that I’m here just to let you cream off all the hard work I’m doing while you’re snoring in your bed all day long? That’s just pathetic, Lapis, don’t you think?”

Until now, Lapis was pretending as if there wasn’t any particular reason that would make her skip the class, but the fact that Peridot had no idea what the true case was, was quite hurting Lapis. Normally, there wasn’t any reason except her pure laziness – which Peridot knew about. That's what she blamed her for – and not just today.

She sighed and sat up slowly, a little bit cornered because she had no idea how to explain this situation to her friend. She couldn’t come up with the truth – that was clear as a day sky. But what should she say? The accusation of skiving off school because of being lazy quite offended her because it wasn’t true… now. “Peridot, it’s… it’s not like that.” She said inferiorly, biting her lip.

Peridot huffed, shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh, really? And how is that?”

Lapis felt trapped. How could she say something that she couldn’t? “Trust me, Peri. I-it’s different this time.”

“Pha, how come I can’t believe you?” The short blonde crossed her pale arms on her chest.

‘_Fuck_.’ Lapis hung down her shoulders, looking hopelessly aside. It seemed as her irresponsibility has taken a heavy roll. Now she had to pay.

“Look, Lapis…” The blonde rubbed at her forehead with a sigh. “I just want to help you, okay? I don’t want you to be addicted to me… or anyone else. You’re an adult. You should be more responsible and face your problems yourself… not let others solve them for you.”

Yeah, maybe Peridot had a point on that, but that wasn’t the solution for her actual problem. She exhaled. “… You really don’t believe me, huh?” Lapis looked up into her green eyes. She hurt, and until she’s keeping the secret, the hurt won’t stop.

“I’m sorry, Lapis, but I know you way too well. I ain’t getting fooled this time, so do as you want from now on.” She shrugged and even though it was hard for her, she turned her back towards her friend and began packing things for tomorrow’s classes without saying a single word for the rest of the day – except grumbling low “good night”. Peridot knew that she was a bit too hard on her recently, but all those years of not being able to say “no” to Lapis came down on her. She wanted to help her, even though it didn’t exactly look like it, but how else could Lapis learn being independent than actually start studying on her own?

The next three weeks were tough, namely because Lapis knew she was failing Peridot. She tried to study via internet, but vainly. She was so used to being served with notes up on a plate that she started to adore Peridot for having the nerves with all the fiddly work. Self studying was such torture, but still it was better than participating in Monday mineralogy lessons with twisted stomach… Right?

‘_Yeah, absolutely_!’ Lapis frowned, staring into her laptop and for three long hours trying to take notes from presentations that she found on the internet. For some reason she wasn’t able to concentrate. She noted literally two teeny tiny paragraphs full of words that she didn’t even understand and reading one goddamn sentence took her over five minutes before realizing about what she was actually reading.

It wasn’t her fault though. If it weren’t that stupid professor, everything would be the same – she wouldn’t have to sit at her desk and try writing about things she couldn’t understand, she’d have her notes from Peridot and mainly she wouldn’t feel like garbage. Ah, what has she done to anyone to deserve this, she was constantly asking herself.

The more weeks passed, the more difficult it was for Lapis. In the end, she gave up and decided that she won’t note anything until finals knock on the door. Why would she bother with it now? In the worst case she could sneak up to Peridot’s desk and take some pictures of her notes, but… no, she wouldn’t do that – that would be too bad. That didn’t matter anyway. That was a problem of the future Lapis.

Honestly, after all the weeks that she’s spent avoiding mineralogy classes, she in fact felt better. She felt as if time healed her “illness” and let her live normal student life again. Everything was just fine and on its place… until one day when some higher power let the ground crack under her feet.

“I think you got yourself into trouble.” Peridot announced while entering the dorm one beautiful day, sounding as if she were happy about it though.

Lapis was sitting crossed-legged on her bed, painting her nails black. She looked up at her friend and watched her taking a seat. “_Trouble_ is my middle name.” She said proudly, stretching her arm to look at her fresh-painted nails.

“No kidding.” Peridot put her bag into her lap and began taking her things out of it, putting them on her writing desk.

“So, what have I done now?” Lapis asked with a smirk on her face, looking closely at her hand this time.

“Ms. White wants to see you.” She said, unpacking her textbooks.

Lapis froze in an instant, eyes wide as dinner plates. The sound of her name sent goosebumps all over her body. “… I-I’m sorry-what?”

“You heard me.” The blonde turned around on her chair to face Lapis for a moment before turning back to her things. “She asked me to send you to her office.”

‘_Oh no… No… No, no, no, no_.’ Lapis’ chin dropped just as her hand that was holding a polish brush which accidentally painted a short black stripe over her bed sheets on its way down. ‘_Ah, fuck_!’ Lapis hissed, putting the brush away from it once she noticed it. “No, I-I can’t. I can’t go.” She let out.

“What?” The blonde glanced over at her. “What do you mean-_you can’t go_?”

“I-uh…” Lapis swallowed. There it was again – the odd feeling building up in her stomach.

Well, what was Lapis expecting? How far did she think she’d get like this? She should’ve expected this situation to come.

“R-right now?” Lapis asked, slightly panicking.

“Not now, jeez. Pretty much any time you want I guess.” She shook her head, again turning her head back to the table. “But if I were you, I’d get there as soon as possible.”

Lapis couldn’t stop herself from swallowing again. That wasn’t good. That in fact wasn’t good at all, but was there any other choice? She guessed not. She wished that there was a way out once she assumed that there actually wasn’t any. She was doomed.

<•••>

It wouldn’t be Lapis if she visited Ms. White’s office yet that week. It required a lot of strength and will to come and knock on the door in fact.

She was sweating, she was hot, hoping that the room behind the door was empty so she could say: “At least I tried,” but unfortunately for her, Ms. White’s voice invited her in. Lapis hesitated for a moment before grabbing the handle and yet after that she stood there for a good while. She swallowed, bit her lip and opened the door.

“Ah, miss Lazuli.” The professor smiled, watering one of the plants on the windowsill. “I’m glad you came. Please, have a seat.” She gestured.

Her enthusiasm was twisting Lapis’ guts. She felt unbelievably uncomfortable while sitting down, knowing that the woman was going to sit face to face with her shortly. She leaned against the back of the chair, trying to be as far from the table as possible. She cleared her throat. “Did you want to talk to me?”

The slim woman put the small watering can aside and nodded slightly. “Yes.” She said and sat on her chair across the table, leaning over it and folding her hands on the tabletop.

Lapis swallowed once more, trying to lean back even more, although it was physically impossible by the time.

“I’d like to talk to you about your absence in my classes, miss Lazuli.” She began seriously.

“Yes?” Lapis hissed in, trying her best to avoid her eyes whenever she was looking at her which was practically all the time.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to let you participate in the final oral exam.” She cleared her throat softly and from a drawer she put out some folder, opening it. “I just wanted to let you know that I don’t tolerate more than fifty percent of absence, but your absence is higher than seventy percent already.” She listed in the stack of papers, then slowly raised her eyes from it once she found Lapis' personal sheet. “… Neglecting the three previous semesters.”

“Uuuh…” There was nothing Lapis could do but stare. Her palms and forehead started sweating even more. She hated the little space between them. It felt as if it were getting smaller and smaller every second. It was hard to breathe.

This whole absence thing was actually a big deal, too. It was worse than Lapis expected.The previous mineralogy professor wasn’t that strict in absence – nor even any other she knew. What was Lapis going to do?

“So, the question is…” The pale woman continued, closed the folder and shifted it aside, leaning over the table again, making the space between them even smaller. “What are we going to do with it?”

Another “uhh” came out of Lapis. It was pretty much the only thing that she was able to do. “I-uh…” She swallowed hard again. Her throat was so dry. This wasn’t like her. Where did all the confidence and insolence towards authorities go?

Once Pearl considered that the answer was not coming any soon, she actually came up with an idea after a moment of thinking. She drew her folded hands up to her chin and began twiddling her thumbs. “Mm… maybe I’d have a suggestion for you.” She said, waiting for Lapis to react or at least look at her, and once she did, even though briefly, she continued. “Considering that there are only a few lessons left until the examination period, I'm not entirely sure if you'd manage lowering your absence to the allowed maximum until then. Therefore, I suggest that you could, perhaps, write up an essay on the topic of mineralogy and bring it to me the next week. Then maybe I’ll consider letting you participate in the final exam.” She offered, remembering all the admonitions and notes from Lapis’ sheet in the back of her mind. “… But the essay _has_ to be good.”

Well, that was one bad news after another. Did that professor even have an idea how bad at writing essays Lapis was? That surely wasn’t going to end up well, but if that was the only solution for this situation then Lapis shall do her best not to possibly deal with anything worse.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Lapis forced a smile, rising from her seat as if their meeting came to an end. “It’ll lie on your table the next week.”

“I hope so.” Ms. White smiled a little and watched her student walking backwards towards the door slowly. “Good luck.”

Instead of an actual response, Lapis grinned stupidly, searching for the door handle behind her back for a good while before finally managing to open the door. She exited the room and closed the door then, pressing her back against it and breathing heavily.

Who was she kidding? She couldn’t write an essay, let alone a good one. That was literally the end of the world. She couldn’t even ask Peridot for help! That was bad. Very bad. What on earth did she get herself into?

Lapis slid the door down to the floor, clutching her head in her hands. ‘_What the hell do I do_?’ She sighed desperately, brows furrowed. She didn’t know whether she was sad or angry. It was a fairly decent mixture of madness, anger, sadness and hopelessness. Her stomach twisted. She felt like throwing up from everyone and everything. Could this situation be any worse?

Once the blue-haired girl got home, she had plenty of time to think – not that she didn’t have a lot of it on her way there already.

“So, how did it go?” Peridot raised her brows curiously as Lapis closed the door of their dorm. She walked to her bed and fell flat on her face on it, letting out a growl.

“I’m doomed.” She murmured into the pillow.

“Are you?” Peridot snorted. The look at Lapis was actually quite funny, she thought. "What did she want?"

“She wants me to write an essay, Peridot. An essay!” Lapis revealed, hopelessness in her voice considerably readable. “Do you know how bad at writing essays I am?”

“I’m not gonna lie, but you’re terrible at it.” Peridot couldn’t bite back a giggle.

“Ah, Peridot, I need your help.” Lapis sat up. “Please… If the essay is bad than she’s not gonna let me participate in the final exam.”

“Then you better do the best you can.” Her friend shrugged, still keeping a smile on her face. “Since when do you care about passing a subject anyway?”

Lapis rolled her eyes, blowing her fringe away from them then. That was in fact more difficult to answer than she would’ve thought. “I… t-that doesn’t matter. All I need is to write up an essay so I don’t have to bother with anything else until the end of the semester.”

“Good luck with that then.” The blonde said and once again turned towards her textbooks spreading all across her desk.

“Oh, come on, Peri. You can’t just walk out on me like that.” She gave her a hopeful look, however, Peridot kept staring into her books, taking a pen into her hand.

“Watch me.” She smirked and let her friend enjoy the moment of distress that Peridot herself was very familiar with.

So this was what a true student life felt like. Suddenly, it tasted so bitter.

“Jasper?” Lapis addressed her once the phone was picked up.

“Yeah?” Sounded from the other side of the line.

“Wanna go to the club tonight? I feel like drinking up a whole barrel of beer.” She said hoarsely, staring at the empty sheet of paper in front of her with her forehead rested in her palm, sitting at her table the entire afternoon and suffering.

“Yeah, sure. Down the stairs at eight?” Jasper suggested without any hesitaion.

“See you there.” Lapis nodded and hung up, wishing it was 8 o’clock already. She had enough of this whole thing. She hoped that spending the evening in a local night club will relieve her a little bit. She just needed to forget about everything and finally breathe.

“But seriously, what’s up with you, dude?” Jasper asked again as they were walking down the street, heading to the club.

“I said I’m fine.” Lapis repeated, hands in her jacket pockets.

The tall girl just shook her head, not believing her a word. She wondered since when she actually started acting like this. Jasper recalled that day when Lapis was acting so weird next to that new professor, wondering if that had something to do with it. She could certainly tell that something was not in order. She didn’t know this Lapis and so she decided to find out what caused her acting so odd.

Jasper put a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, taking one and putting it into her mouth. She couldn’t find her lighter though. “Hey, you got my lighter?”

Despite shrugging her shoulders, Lapis fished the lighter out of her pocket on the first try, handing it to the girl. “You should stop with it.”

“I would.” She lit the stick up.

“But?” The smaller girl looked up at her.

“It makes me look cool.” She said proudly and inhaled, putting the lighter into her jacket pocket.

“No, it doesn’t.” Lapis opposed. “It’s gross.”

Jasper rolled her eyes, approaching the beach club that was taking place under a lighthouse hill. “Whatever.” She grabbed the railing and continued up a wooden staircase towards a narrow outdoor terrace, slowly finishing the cigarette. “Milady.” She opened the door and gestured for Lapis to enter first, then she threw the butt away and followed her in.

There were fairly many people despite it was the middle of the week. They were dancing, drinking fine cocktails and chatting, laughing or making out. The whole room was a little bit fogged, ground and walls shaking to the rhythm of the music.

Lapis felt quite bad for ordering a glass of beer, seeing all those people having fancy drinks with paper umbrellas. She was even surprised that they were offering beer in here. Sitting on a bar stool, she was staring ahead and watching the bartender making colorful shakes, thinking again, corners of her mouth turned rather downwards. Jasper, on the other hand, was facing the dance floor, watching ladies dancing wildly to the rhythm and shaking their bottoms. She was smiling widely and bitting her lip every time once one of the girls met her eyes.

“Hey, I think that chick over there’s hitting on me.” Jasper stated confidently once her and the mentioned girl’s eyes met for the fifth time, blowing her kisses. “I’m going to talk to her.”

“Enjoy yourself.” Lapis murmured and sipped from her pint, watching with a corner of her eye as Jasper began making moves on that girl once she approached her, nudging her softly and praising her appearance.

Lapis shall have some fun, too, not just sit there like that all night. But once that thought came up to her mind, someone’s hand was placed onto her shoulder, sliding down her arm tenderly.

“Hello, bluebird.” Said the person standing beside her. Lapis turned around and screamed instantly, almost falling from her seat. She thought that there was no way she would meet Ms. White in the club, yet fortunately for Lapis, it was just someone who was at most similar to her – tall, slim with a pointy nose and short blond hair. Lapis was so thankful that she didn't get a heart-attack.

“Oh my, forgive me for giving you a scare like this.” The girl giggled. Her piercing voice sounded as if it belonged to some haughty secretary woman. “How about having some fun together, beautiful?”

Lapis stared with a chin slightly dropped, eyebrows furrowed. “… Maybe after tenth glass.”

“Excuse me?!” Insulted, the slim blonde put her hand on her chest and huffed, shaking her head. “Cheeky bastard.” She said and with chin turned upwards she walked off.

‘_Well, that was a good start_.’ Lapis thought and breathed out through her nose. Now this was going to haunt her until she falls asleep tonight.

Lapis kept sipping her beer then and from time to time she glanced over to Jasper and her partner, watching them making out, snuggling and touching each other. She wouldn’t be surprised if they’d go all the way. Besides, Jasper’s courtship skills never failed her.

Lapis then finished her third glass and decided to act. Feeling light and carefree, she hit the dance floor and moved to the music, bumping into hot, sweaty bodies surrounding her while dancing, taking a random girl around her waist and pulling her towards herself, letting the girl's fingers brush through her ocean-blue hair and gasp passionately into her face, giving her neck and chest fine strokes, pressing their pelvises against one another.

Eventually, they ended up making out and touching one another in a dark narrow hall surrounded by other couples doing their own thing. Lapis didn’t care who that girl was. She didn’t even mind that they were kissing. It was just happening and she could do nothing about it. At least the girl wasn’t biting, but god she was groaning so sweetly.

Finally, Lapis felt free again. She really had fun that night. No school, no professors, no essays. She shall do it more often in this stressful phase of her life just in effort to make herself think about something else than her responsibilities and problems. What else was there to do anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Lapis stopped participating in mineralogy classes  
• Lapis was called to Pearl's office  
• Jasper and Lapis headed to a night club


	10. The Beginning of the Story

Lapis opened her eyes and although it was quite dark around her, the room she was in felt somehow familiar. She was sitting on a chair, but she couldn’t move, feeling as if she were glued to it. She was just sitting there, staring ahead and perceiving someone’s presence in the room, smelling a sweet, light fragrance. Suddenly, she felt hot breath ghosting over the back of her neck. From her forehead to her nape, someone’s thin fingers slowly ran through her hair, then delicately slid down her neck towards her throat and then up to her jaw, copying her jaw line with the person’s thumbs. Those hands then slowly pulled Lapis’ head backwards, leaving her lips slightly parted.

Lapis was shivering, her heart was pounding, palms sweating. She knew it was her. She could feel it.

“I still haven’t finished the essay.” Lapis said pitifully, her voice lightly echoed in the room. “Please, don’t let me fail the subject.”

All of a sudden, Ms. White appeared standing in front of her in the dim light. Lapis couldn’t see into her face though. For some reason, there was her crotch at her eyes level instead.

“I don’t mind.” Lapis heard her tender voice, sensing a wide smile on the woman’s pale face. “We may start with the oral exam right now… shall we?” She suggested seductively and slowly began unzipping her pants right in front of Lapis’ eyes.

At that exact moment Lapis woke up screaming, sweating and gasping. ‘_Jesus fucking Christ_!’ She clutched her head in her hands, perceiving the intensifying headache from all the alcohol she drank the last night. '_Ah, fucking hell_.'

“Lapis?” Peridot sat up straight, taking her glasses from the night table beside her bed.

Lapis, instead of responding, kicked her covers away and began putting on her pants and jacket.

“What’s going on? Where are you going?” Peridot asked, watching her friend leaving the room.

“I need some fresh air.” Lapis murmured hoarsely, zipping up her jacket. The hall light lit up once it registered movement and accompanied Lapis all the way downstairs. She unlocked the main door and got out.

She walked down the hill, wandering round the early morning town and silent park. She was so exhausted – exhausted from everything, both physically and psychically. She couldn’t keep going like this – not anymore, otherwise she’d go crazy from everything. It was getting worse and worse every day. She was becoming desperate, hopeless. She really must do something. She must act, and the sooner she does, the better. But what shall she do? She tried everything she could and nothing helped so far.

Well, desperate times call for a desperate solution, and there still was one thing that she could actually do, although that was something that she was forbidding herself from doing since the very beginning of this whole thing – and so confide to someone. Seriously, how many possible options she had left yet? She just wanted to put an end to this and so in desperation she decided to talk to somebody. Though she thought that there was absolutely no one that she could talk to about it, someone who would understand, there actually might be somebody made for it. Hopefully, she might help, and if not, then Lapis was pretty much going to throw herself off a cliff because she could take no more. She might be risking ending up as a total wreck and idiot, but if that was the last thing that could actually help her out of this misery, then she wanted to risk it – no matter the cost. She had nothing to lose anyway.

“Thanks for making time for me.” Lapis blinked tiredly, standing on the porch of her friend’s big house.

“Noo problem, my friend.” Said a pink-haired girl, combing her long hair with her fingers while accompanying Lapis inside.

The house looked way different than the last time Lapis was there. It was clean and empty.

“Want some coffee? You look terrible.” The girl snorted, watching Lapis sitting down on the couch.

Lapis nodded despite she’d rather fall asleep and never wake up. “I guess.”

“Alright. Just wait here, I’ll be right back.” Spinel said and left for a few moments. Meanwhile, Lapis fell back into pillows, sinking into them. She looked up at the ceiling and still she was wondering if this was a good idea, but each time she doubted it, she admitted that there really was no other way to solve this problem according to everything that she’s tried so far.

“There you go.” Spinel smiled a little and put the cup of coffee on the table right in front of her friend, taking a seat in the armchair nearby. “So, what’s the matter? What brings you here this ungodly hour?” She leaned over one of the armrests, throwing her loose hair over her shoulder.

Lapis kept staring upwards for a while, thinking and not feeling exactly good. She exhaled then, closing her dark eyes.

Spinel watched her closely, studying her. This person didn’t quite seem like Lapis to her. She knew how Lapis looked after six glasses of beer, but she felt like alcohol wasn't playing any significant role in this now. The way she was speaking and acting was different. She didn’t seem drunk at all.

“Lapis?” The girl addressed her carefully, a little bit worried. “What’s up?”

Lapis hissed in pain once she leaned away from the back of the couch. Her head still hurt a little from the night before. She sat cross-legged and put her hands into her lap.

“… Spinel, I…” She began, but yet for the last time she tried to change her mind. Vainly. “I need your help.”

“You?” Spinel’s brows rose curiously. “You need help from _me_?”

“Yes.” She nodded, looking briefly at her friend. She then paused for a moment just to take a look around the dim, silent room.

Lapis indeed had a hard time starting with it, there was no doubt. Spinel could see it and honestly she wasn’t the first one that noticed that something wasn’t right about her.

“I… I-uh, the… Ugh.” She stuttered, palming her forehead. She didn’t know how to start. She felt so stupid, so helpless. Everything was going down on her. She breathed out.

“It’s okay, Lapis. Just take it easy.” Spinel tried to calm her down, waiting patiently until Lapis was ready to go on. She's never seen her like this before and it kind of stated freaking her out.

Lapis took a breath then. “… There’s this… person. I-I can’t get her out of my head.”

Once she finished the sentence, a grin curled up on her friend’s face. “Oh boy, I knew it.” She giggled. Somehow, she was guessing it right from the start – plus Jasper was a great source of information, too. “So is it true then.”

"What?" Lapis frowned in confusion. It seemed as if Spinel knew what was going on. But how? There was no way she would know.

"Would you look at that?" Spinel kept grinning, but not spitefully. “Our Lapis has fallen in love.”

"What–how did–who–" She began wondering how Spinel could just deduce that. Nobody could have told her about it. Or was it too obvious from what Lapis just said? She bit her lip, not able to look at her friend longer than for one more second. She felt just horrible, embarrassed. She didn’t want to talk about it. If only this conversation was over already.

Spinel tried to bite back a smile, but it was somehow hard to do. Maybe because she knew exactly how Lapis was feeling – just like herself two years ago. She knew Lapis would break sooner or later because this was a big deal. She let her continue then, giving her a nod.

Lapis inhaled as if to increase her courage, then exhaled. She started twiddling her thumbs. The fact that Spinel somehow knew quite disturbed her. It was even more difficult to talk about it now. “I just… I-I have no idea what to do… I can’t stop thinking about her. I see her everywhere, I… I dream about her.” She shook her head, seeing flashes of the woman’s images in front of her eyes, perceiving the strange feeling that she feels every time she’s near her. “I have this… weird feeling in my guts every time I see her.” She continued and the more facts she was revealing, the more she was aware of what was truly happening, and there was no way she would make it look like it was something else. It was crystal clear now. “I don’t know what to do, Spinel. I tried everything. I’m desperate, I can’t sleep, I-I can’t do anything to make it stop…” She moaned. “Please, I need your help. How do I stop this? What do I do?”

Since Spinel was relatively freshly broken-up, Lapis though that she would know how to stop thinking about someone, but unfortunately the reality turned out to be the exact opposite.

“Lapis, that’s… quite hard to say to be honest.” She thought, looking aside for a second. “Have you tried… I don't know… hanging out with girls perhaps?” She raised her brows, sticking her finger into a hole that she made from two fingers of her other hand just to be clear about what she meant by that.

“You think I haven’t?” Lapis gestured, huffing. “Hanging out” with girls was literally the first thing she did. “It didn’t help… not for too long.” She hung down her head, sighing again. “… I started skipping classes, thinking I’d stop meeting her… but it just got worse–.”

“So, she’s your classmate, huh?” She deduced.

Lapis bit down at her lip again. It felt weird when Spinel kept asking for details like that. “It’s way worse.”

Spinel’s brows rose once more, she rubbed at her chin.

The blue-haired girl swallowed, flushing entirely. “… It’s my professor.”

Spinel froze, but her eyes went wide. It took Lapis a moment before she gathered enough courage to look at her.

“Well…” Spinel cleared her throat, letting the news sink in. Processing such information naturally took her a while, but she eventually overcame the slight shock. She ran her hand through her hair, hissing in. “That’s-uh… something.”

“What do I do, Spinel?” Lapis looked desperately at her.

The girl thought, cupping her mouth with her palm. Her eyes darted over to Lapis, then away. “Well… if you’re saying that you’ve tried everything already, then… maybe try and go for it?”

“_What_?! You can't be serious.” Lapis spat, clutching the edge of the sofa. “Spinel, I-I can’t afford this! Can you imagine how… how that’d ruin my reputation? I-I can’t allow myself feeling like this. Besides, she’s my professor! That’s another reason why it wouldn’t work…”

“How old is she?” Spinel interrupted, again rubbing at her chin.

Lapis huffed, still not believing the suggestion. “What do I know… twenty, thirty?”

Her friend cleared her throat, hanging her feet down from the armchair. “Lapis…” She addressed her and slowly shifted the armchair with herself closer to her, murmuring. “I’m gonna tell you something now, okay?” She began. “… Few years ago, I used to think the same. I used to ask the same questions as you. I thought that crushing on someone and falling in love was making people weak and vulnerable, but then I happened to actually fall in love…”

Lapis frowned, looking distrustfully at her friend, wondering where she was getting with that.

“… Do you remember how berserk I was back then?” Spinel laughed briefly at that memory. “I was going nuts from that girl and I hated her for it. I couldn’t stop thinking of her… about her eyes and ass.” She snorted. “… She was haunting me in my dreams, I was hearing her voice in my ears all the time… you can imagine.” Spinel shared an empathetic look with her friend. “I didn’t want to admit that I was in love with her… but that feeling was so strong, so overwhelming that it broke me.”

Yeah, Lapis could totally relate to that, however, she was a bit afraid of the upcoming part of the story.

“One day we went camping with my friends and she was there, too. We were rafting, singing around the campfire and having fun with everyone. Then the two of us actually had a few little talks about random things and… those conversations felt quite pleasant. We started spending time together even after the vacation and we got really close. I was there for her when she needed me and she was there for me…” The girl paused for a second, recalling the times when everything that was gone now was yet at the sweet beginning. “At that moment I stopped thinking only about myself. I didn’t care about what would others say or think of me because she was the only person that mattered to me at that time. I felt loved, I felt strong like never before.” Spinel smiled to herself, nostalgia overwhelmed her for a moment.

Lapis listened to her in silence and even though her story was touching, Lapis stood her ground. No one would change her mind about anything that easily. She was fairly obdurate for that.

Spinel then shook herself out of her thoughts and continued. “But what I’m trying to say here is that… you can never know what might bring you joy. So, perhaps giving it a try is an option, too.”

“But Spinel…” Lapis smacked, rubbing her forehead. “Can’t you understand, I… I can’t…” She exhaled.

The fact that Spinel’s story was quite similar to her own was making Lapis feel even more anxious and uncomfortable. She could see Ms. White in front of her eyes, seeing those kind loving eyes and her warm honest smile that she in fact hated. Just the thought of her made her heart race. That was a serious deal. It was truly bad. “I can’t do it, I-I don’t… want to.” She said, but for some reason it took her a second or two before finishing the sentence.

“Do you?” Spinel couldn’t help but ask, smiling, seeing hesitancy in Lapis’ eyes. She could tell that she was fighting the truth. She used to do the same.

“Of course I don’t!” Lapis crossed her arms on her chest, falling back into pillows. “There’s… no way. She’s an authority anyway.”

Spinel grinned, resting her chin in her palm. “But you love fucking around with authorities, don’t you?” She chortled, but received a serious expression. “Like-fuck the system, dude. She’s a human just like you.”

“This is just stupid.” Lapis palmed her forehead, sighing.

“It is.” Spinel nodded in agreement. This whole thing was just insane. “But think about it, what else is there to do? You can't keep avoiding her forever if she's your professor, right? Besides, you can't really do anything with the chemistry. It just happens.”

Lapis raised her eyes, sharing a brief look with Spinel. She seemed serious about it and Lapis couldn’t believe it. Lapis hasn’t thought about this option before – maybe because it was just unthinkable. She couldn’t make a move on someone, let alone an authority. That was just unacceptable and against the entire system. Lapis loved breaking rules in a way… but this? This would surpass all the mischief that she’s ever done.

“Here, take a sip.” The pink-haired girl said, handing Lapis the cup of coffee that she brought her earlier. “Hey, I know you’re not much of a dater… I wasn’t either, but once I started listening to my heart instead of my head, I felt a lot better. You don't have to be ashamed of this part of yourself. It's natural.”

Lapis raised her dark blue eyes from the cup for a second, cooling the liquid with her breath. At that moment Lapis thought about Jasper – how many times she pleaded her to date her. If Lapis started an affair with someone else, it would ruin her. She couldn’t do that to her. And yet there was another problem if Lapis actually began considering making a move…

“I bet she’s not even gay.” She murmured into the mug, taking a sip.

The other girl hummed. “You cannot know. Maybe she is, maybe she’s not. You have to try and risk it, then you’ll at least have a clear idea about it.”

Lapis thought and breathed out again, tapping the mug with her finger. “… Would you make a move on… a professor?”

“Depends.” She shrugged. “How does she look?”

Lapis flushed instantly, again recalling those sky-blue eyes, her slightly freckled cheeks and lean pale arms. She felt so embarrassed talking yet even thinking about her, but if it must be… “She’s… quite tall and skinny… and ginger.”

“Oh la la.” Spinel chuckled, grinning from ear to ear.

“Spinel, please…” Lapis blushed even more, but frowned. “It’s not funny.”

“If you say so.” The girl shrugged once more, but still she kept a smile on her face. “Anyway… if you haven’t considered dropping out or moving out of town then… I’m afraid that’s pretty much all I can recommend if nothing else is working, so… I guess it’s up to you from now on.”

Lapis shook her head as if she were wrong. “Oh, come on, Spiny… There must be some other way around.” She still hoped. She couldn’t just settle for this option. Besides, leaving the college just because of her would be ridiculous.

“If there is, then you better find it before you go entirely crazy.”

The rest of the week Lapis spent writing the essay – better said trying to take a pen into her hand, staring into the blank sheet of paper. She didn’t even know what topic she should choose. There were so many things that she could write about, but none of them she understood. Clocks were ticking and she was running out of time. Once she thought about not even finishing it and pretending that she forgot about it, but she knew that wouldn’t end up well. She had to do it. There was no other way, no matter how much she tried to find one.

She ended up copying down a random essay that she found on the internet because making up words from her own head was such an exhausting process. She hoped that Ms. White was just about to read it and not possibly search for the original author on the internet. Lapis helped her moving in, so why would Ms. White suspect Lapis from doing such thing? Lapis was such fair and willing person, wasn’t she?

She felt quite uneasy while stepping into the college though. She always got away with things like this, so why would it be different this time? For some reason she had a bad feeling about it. She so hoped that this was the last time when she was stepping into Ms. White’s office.

“Yes? Come in.” She heard after knocking on the door, clutching the essay in her hand. She’d better seem as nothing intense was going on inside her otherwise she was going to pay for it. So she put on a confident smile and entered the room.

“Lapis Lazuli, you're right on time.” The woman grinned sweetly, freckles shining on her cheeks.

Lapis struggled keeping the smile on her face then. Once again Ms. White’s appearance started making a mess out of her and the conversation she had with Spinel few days ago wasn't helping it either.

“Did you bring me the essay?”

“Um, yeah, g-got it.” Lapis stuttered once she managed pulling her eyes away from those long, slender legs.

“Excellent.” The woman smiled again and headed towards Lapis.

The girl stood frozen, though she was rather turning hot the closer the woman was. She stopped several steps away from her and reached her hand, waiting for Lapis to hand her the paper, but Lapis didn’t seem like doing so.

The professor cleared her throat, raising her light brows slightly after a moment. “May I?” She asked, pointing at the sheet of paper.

“Oh-uh, sure.” She gave her the work, fortunately not touching her hand during that.

Ms. White scanned her closely as if she could sense that something was not in order, narrowing her eyes. Lapis had a hard time bringing up another confident smile. Somehow, she managed that, though she was dying inside.

The woman took the slightly crumpled paper into both of her hands, sighing at the scribble-like handwriting, turning the paper around only to find out that the “essay” wasn’t as long as she would expect it to be.

“Miss Lazuli, how long did the essay take you to finish?” She raised her eyes from the paper, already quite disappointed with the output.

“Way longer than you think, to be honest.” Lapis said straight. It was true, even though it hardly looked like it.

The tall woman kept looking at her, then she briefly looked down at the work. “Very well…” She sighed softly, turning the paper once more. “What topic did you choose then?” She asked because she couldn’t even read the title itself.

“Uuuuh…” That was a very good question, Lapis thought. Honestly, she couldn’t remember a word that she wrote down on that stupid paper. “Mineralogy based topic of course.” She tried, grinning stupidly.

“Could you be more specific, please?” She looked up at her again, suspicious about her answer.

“Sure, yeah, of course-uh…” Lapis cleared her throat, eyes darting round the room. There came the problem. “I-uh… yeah, the thing is… I-I wrote it yet that day you assigned it and… I can’t really remember what I was writing about, so.”

Ms. White exhaled, her eyes went round. “Miss Lazuli, did you even write this?” She gestured, not exactly happy about the fact that she was, according to her, being fooled.

“Sure I did.” She tittered. Well technically, she wrote the text down herself – that was valid.

“… Alright.” She breathed out and slowly walked back to her desk.

Was that it? Could Lapis celebrate? A victorious grin curled up on her cheeks.

“Thank you, miss Lazuli. You are free to go now.” She stated, then put the essay on the table and turned back to her student, and once Lapis was about to grab the door handle, Ms. White spoke again, freezing her in the doorway. “Please, come back to my office the day after tomorrow so we can discuss your work in detail.”

‘_You gotta be shitting me_.’ Lapis cursed to herself, hissing in through her teeth. “Yup, sure! Noting that.” She put on a huge grin, then pointed a finger gun at the woman and blinked.

Ms. White was fairly taken aback by that, eyes wide. Her heart started pounding and her body stiffened. “E-excuse me?”

Lapis froze as well, realizing what she’s done, pulling her hand back immediately and swallowing. Her cheeks turned dark red. “Oh-uh, s-sorry, that was… just a force of habit.” She cleared her throat. “Um, bye!” She turned on her heels, waved and disappeared from her sign, leaving the building as fast as she could, embarrassed as never before.

Soon she realized that this wasn’t over. This was just the beginning of the story… And it couldn't start worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Lapis had a weird dream  
• Lapis confessed to Spinel about her crush  
• Lapis wrote up an essay for her professor


	11. Another Chance

Time was running incredibly fast these days and today was the day for which Lapis wished that never came. She was supposed to visit Ms. White’s office again, but instead she was urgently trying to make up any possible excuse not to go there. But if she didn’t, that would cause her yet more trouble than she’s already been in and she definitely didn’t want that. She had no choice. The only thing she could do was hoping that her essay was good enough so this would be the last time seeing that woman before finals.

“Please, have a seat.” The lean woman gestured towards the visitor chair across the table, lacing her fingers on the tabletop. She watched Lapis closely the entire time, namely the way she was trying to settle down. Once Lapis found a comfortable position, the room went silent for a few moments. She swallowed nervously at the look that the professor was giving her. Somehow, she didn’t have a good feeling about that gaze.

Ms. White cleared her throat after a second or two. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” She suggested and reached for a drawer. “I’ve read your work, miss Lazuli… well, if we can consider it as _your_ work.” She put the essay out the drawer and splatted it flat on the table, shifting it to Lapis.

Lapis looked closely at the paper, staring at it for a while. She didn’t like the way the word “your” sounded. Chills ran over her body once she realized where she might be getting with that.

“How would you explain copying the entire work from the internet to me?” She laced her fingers again and put them under her chin.

Lapis froze. Her mouth formed into a tight line. ‘_Well, shit_.’ She cleared her throat. Why on earth would Ms. White waste her time checking if Lapis copied it? She couldn’t be serious! But there still was a small chance that she was just testing her… Right? “… That’s a very good question.” Lapis admitted, cornered. She’d rather pretend as if she didn’t know what she was talking about, but it surely wouldn’t work out well. Lapis thought that after what she’s done for Ms. White, she wouldn’t suspect her from such things. It was rather disappointing, but Lapis supposed that maybe the unprofessional way the sheet of paper looked played a role in it.

“So?” Ms. White was waiting, watching her.

The longer she watched her, the more Lapis felt like those eyes were burning a hole into her. What was she supposed to answer? She couldn’t say that she was lazy or that she was used to do things at the last minute. That was just pathetic despite it being true. “I-uh…well, let’s say I used a little help.”

“… A little.” Ms. White repeated, raising her light eyebrows, leaning back into her chair, arms crossed on her chest now.

This was just so humiliating. Lapis should’ve known better. How could she be so stupid and believe that the professor wouldn’t check if the work wasn’t all copied? Now thanks to that she just made a fool out of herself, although this strategy always worked in case of other professors.

“Maybe a little bit more.” She conceded, eyes down. She wondered what the woman was thinking. Lapis wasn’t even brave enough to look back at her then. Honestly, she was quite embarrassed.

The woman exhaled, but her gaze rather softened and turned into an empathetic one. She leaned over the table again. “Miss Lazuli, I gave you a chance to prove that you deserve passing the subject despite all your absence and admonitions that you gained in the past few years, but you wasted it just like this… Why?”

Well, the answer was simple – she was lazy and not taking it as a big deal, but she couldn’t say that to her, could she? Lapis breathed out, trying to come up with a good lie that might perhaps sound believable, but lying to her felt kind of stupid to Lapis now. The problem was that Lapis was barely honest with someone and the thought of voluntarily admitting her mistakes was literally shattering her ego. But according to how much confidence she’s lost in the past few weeks, she guessed that it couldn’t be any worse. So the truth it was this time. “I know, I’m sorry, I… I tried, but…” She paused for a while, still not quite believing that she actually decided to take this path. “I’m just… really bad at essays… and… I kinda have a problem with the subject in overall, too, so… ”

The woman wrinkled her brows, humming to herself. “If you’re having a problem with the subject, why wouldn’t you participate in my classes in the first place?” She wondered.

Lapis’ stomach shrunk, remembering how frustrated, confused and helpless during those classes she felt just from being in one room with that person, recalling all the classes when she felt like going crazy from all the thoughts in her head and terrifying emotions that she has never felt before – emotions that made her wonder, that made her eye every single step, every single movement of that woman.

The student blushed at the memory of it, not able to answer her question whatsoever, staying quiet for way too long.

Despite reading through all the notes from Lapis’ personal folder earlier, Pearl still couldn’t believe that such a nice-seeming person like her would be some kind of a skiver or vandal. She heard several remarks from her co-workers against her, too, but the way the student was acting in front of her wasn’t matching with their words. Why would Lapis come and help her moving in if she wasn’t giving a damn about anything? Perhaps there was something – certain reason for her not to come to the classes, perhaps she was misunderstood, perhaps she needed help.

Ms. White sighed then. “Look, Lapis…” She began and by calling Lapis her first name she caught her attention immediately. It sounded so strange, yet somehow nice from her, Lapis thought in her mind. “… This is my first year of teaching and I can assure you that I don’t want any of my students to fail the subject.”

‘_Oh, thank god_.’ Lapis let out a sigh of relief. She then remained silent and listened. The way she spoke to her fairly surprised her. She was sure that if it were any other professor, they would be screaming at her just because they knew who they were dealing with.

“… I’d like you to pass.” The young woman continued in a calm voice, fingers intertwined. “But I would expect a little bit more from a… an college student.” She admitted, giving the essay a glance. “So, what are we going to do with you?”

Lapis hung down her head slowly. Now she was trapped. She was doomed and she had no idea how to get out of this situation. She really wished it had a solution – and if it did, then they shall better find it because the more minutes Lapis was spending in the woman’s presence, the more she longed for getting out of there. “I guess writing another essay would be a bad idea, huh?” Lapis tittered, hoping that the woman would agree with her.

Ms. White then looked up at Lapis, chewing her lip. She was thinking, however, she couldn’t come up with anything so far. Although she was pretty sure that Lapis wouldn’t dare copying any text this time, she also thought that assigning another essay to her would be pointless – partly because she was afraid of the actual output which probably wouldn’t end up any better than the last one, but she didn’t want to give up on her just yet, and eventually she got an idea.

“Maybe I might give you one last chance… if you’d be willing to take it of course.” She suggested.

“Um, sure.” Lapis nodded almost instantly. ‘_Just tell me what to do and let me get out of here already_.’

“Very well.” She cleared her throat and straightened in her back. “As I mentioned already, due to your high absence you won’t be able to lower it to the allowed maximum until the examination period.” She said and reached for the drawer again, pulling out a small piece of paper and taking a blue pen from the pen holder on her desk. “And since you are struggling a little with the subject…” She clicked the pen and began writing something on the paper. “There is one thing I can do for you.”

“There is?” Lapis straightened, hoping and wondering.

The professor hummed in agreement, but kept writing. “What I can do… is to provide you some of my free time. Let’s say two extra hours per week… as private mineralogy lessons.” She looked up at Lapis only to find her staring back with eyes wide open. At that exact moment Lapis felt like fainting right on the spot. She lost her breath entirely. Did she just hear her say “private lessons”?

“… Those private lessons I would consider as your presence in my regular classes…” She went on and looked back down, continuing in writing. “… And so the percent of your absence might lower enough to let you participated in the final oral exam… assuming that you won’t miss neither a single Monday nor a private lecture until then.”

Speechless, Lapis kept staring at her, not believing her own ears. The idea itself sounded great, but private lessons? Lapis was grateful for seeing that woman once per month, but she certainly couldn’t imagine seeing her twice per one week! Did she seriously want Lapis to go entirely crazy? There was no way she would agree to this!

“Would this alternative be suitable for you, miss Lazuli?” Ms. White asked, putting the pen aside, but Lapis’s vocal system seemed to stop functioning.

“Uuuh…” She let out, unable to form a full sentence, let alone a single word.

“… Or would you rather try and convince me that you can write up a good essay? … On your own.”

Why would Ms. White ask such difficult questions? Now Lapis was bemused and cornered yet more than before. Everyone knew that she was awful at writing coursework, but would writing another one be actually worse than spending more than two regular hours per week with that woman? Now she was truly on the fence. What shall she choose? Each option was worse than the other! Couldn’t there be one more – only less horrifying?

“C-could you give some time to think about it?” Lapis asked in the end, quite too timidly for her own taste.

“But of course.” She smiled a bit, then took the little sheet of paper and handed it to her student. “Here, there’s my phone number and also times when I’m available if you’d prefer visiting me in my office. But I’d like to ask you to let me know as soon as possible so I would be able to conform my free time.”

Lapis took the paper from her quite insecurely, reading through all the numbers, then looking back at the woman and then eyeing the writings again. “S-sure… thanks. I’ll let you know soon.” Lapis promised and slowly rose from the chair.

“I am counting on that.” Ms. White said, still keeping the little smile on her face. She then took the blue pen and put it back on its place. “We don’t have much time left, so please don’t take too long.”

The girl nodded and with a hard swallow she left the room.

‘_No, no, no. There’s no way I’m doing that_!’ Lapis buried her face into her palms, sitting on her bed the very next day. This must be a bad dream! If only she knew that her actions would lead to this, she would never skip those goddamn classes. No, she can’t do that! She can’t take office hours! As if the situation wasn’t bad already, someone up there decided that it must be even worse! ‘_Why the fuck is everything against me?! What have I done to anybody_?’ Lapis whined into her hands.

At this point writing another essay sounded twice as better than the office hours, but Lapis couldn’t do that. It would be a total disaster. On the other hand though, she wouldn’t have to meet that woman twice a week. But if she chose this path, she still wouldn’t have any notes to get inspiration and help from for the coursework. She needed help with the subject anyway. She couldn’t prepare herself for the finals from nothing, right? Copying some text from the internet again was passé, too, such as asking Peridot or anyone else to give her a hand, but still it sounded better than some stupid private lessons!

Once Lapis decided for the essay, she picked up her phone to dial Ms. White’s number, but as soon as she unlocked the screen, she got uncertain again. She was for one hundred percent sure that working on the essay would be a waste of time mainly because she knew that it wouldn’t end up any better than the first one, so why bother with it? What would the woman think of it? What would she think of Lapis? Was it even worth the unavoidable failure? Or would Lapis rather consider taking the private lessons and avoid hours and hours of pointless suffering over one stupid piece of paper? That was such a hard decision. Spinel’s words were running round in her mind all the time, too. Now when she knew that she had a crush on her mineralogy professor, she really didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. What would be the right choice?

With a heavy exhale, Lapis lied down on her bed, facing the mattress and moaning miserably into the pillow. “I wanna die.”

<•••>

She knew she was going to regret it, but there she was, standing on the threshold of hell. If Lapis has to face her demons, then she will.

She pulled a piece of paper with Ms. White’s home address on it out her pocket and checked if the address she was at was correct. There were several blocks of flats in this district and so it was a bit hard for Lapis to locate her apartment, but eventually she got to the right place. She got into the building and walked to the third floor, searching for apartment number eleven.

She stepped in front of the door, scanning over the golden numeral on it. She checked the writings on the paper several times yet to make sure that this was the right flat, yet silently she wished it wasn’t. “What have I gotten myself into?” Lapis groaned, still thinking of turning around and leaving this place, but it was too late. It was time to put the mask of confidence on and hide her insecurities deep under the shell.

Ringing the bell took her fairly too long, but eventually she pressed the button, hoping that no one would come to let her in, but unfortunately for her, Ms. White was at the door in just a few moments.

“Miss Lazuli, welcome.” The slim woman greeted with a warm smile on her face, giving Lapis goosebumps. “Please, come in.”

Somehow, Lapis managed to remain cool – at least she seemed like it on the outside. On the inside she was fairly screaming. She appeared standing in a short dim corridor leading straight into a small illuminated kitchen. She felt a bit uneasy in this cramped room. Once she removed her jacket and shoes, she was asked to follow Ms. White into the living room on the right, feeling a little bit better in the spacious room.

“Please, take a seat whenever you’d like.” The professor gestured, still carrying a small smile on her lips. “May I offer you something to drink?”

“Umm…” Lapis cleared her throat, amazed how nice and clean the room actually was – not like her dorm. “I-I’m cool. Thanks.”

“Alright. I’ll go get the study materials so we can start our session. Make yourself at home.” The woman said, heading into another room.

Lapis just grinned stupidly and watched her leaving the living room. She wasn’t feeling good. Her stomach was twisting. How could she just agree to spend her Thursday afternoons at this woman’s lair? Well, maybe still better than letting her into her dorm. She would be ashamed not only because of the constant mess in there, but also because everyone would see how “The Lapis Lazuli” needed extra time and help with her education.

Ms. White came back in the meantime and sat on the couch next to the blue-haired girl. She crossed her legs rather elegantly to Lapis and listed through the papers in the folder she brought. Suddenly, she raised her head, thinking. She cleared her throat softly. “… Would you mind if I called you your first name?” She asked, sending shivers down Lapis’ spine immediately. Just the idea of it made her head spin.

Lapis flushed red even though she was trying hard to control herself, sweating and wondering if coming here really was a good idea. “I-um, no… N-no, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Thank you.” The professor smiled sweetly. “It will be… let's say more comfortable for the communication.” She giggled, but left Lapis rather speechless. “So, tell me, Lapis, what is the last topic you noted from my classes?”

‘_Umm… none_?’ The girl swallowed, still getting over how close to her she was sitting. “I’ve got-uh…” She began, giving the woman a look, but pulled away from her eyes shortly. “… I’ve got nothing.” She admitted quite ashamed, clenching her teeth and looking elsewhere but her. She could sense her eyes on herself though, and she felt so stupid saying that to her as well. It felt strange when there was nobody else with them in the room, too. “… Even from the classes I’ve been to… Not because I wouldn’t want to take notes, but… I just couldn’t concentrate.”

Pearl stiffened for a second, but then sighed. “… I see.” She said, eyeing the study materials in her hands again. Surprisingly, she took the information relatively well – at least she seemed like it to Lapis. She listed through the papers again and pulled some of them out, clearing her throat. “Let’s start from the beginning then.”

The words she began dictating to Lapis sounded entirely new to her. She couldn’t believe that they were actually discussing these things during the latest classes. She couldn’t remember a single word from them. However, Lapis started having a feeling that this type of education was fitting her rather better than the classic lessons because now she couldn’t afford losing her attention – neglecting that she had a lot to do with handling the closeness between her and the woman. That indeed was partly distracting, but she got quite used to it as the time went by.

Ms. White was patient and understanding, giving Lapis time and space, repeating herself for Lapis when she needed it and explaining her things that she couldn’t understand for the first time, but still Lapis felt quite lost in the terminology.

“–In both cases it is the growth of a younger mineral into crystals of an older mineral, the growth of which has already been terminated. If the growth of both minerals continues in the regular orientation, we speak of an _epitactic ingrowth_, an example of which is the ingrowth of quartz and orthoclase in the picture right here.” Ms. White pointed at the mentioned picture in her papers, letting her student to look at it closely.

Lapis felt like her brain was going to explode from all the information that she absorbed during the last two hours. She felt like she knew everything, but nothing at the same time. It was just too much. So many terms, so many words, so many rocks! She needed a break both from the overwhelming amount of knowledge and especially from spending such a long time in the presence of that person that in fact gave Lapis a heart-attack every time she said her name.

“… So, that would be it for the nucleation. Next time we would look at the mechanism of crystal growth.” Ms. White announced.

‘_If my head’s not going to explode until then_.’ Lapis thought to herself, sweating, staring at all the papers that they worked with today and also at those with which they were supposed to work the next Thursday. The number of them was just so terrifying.

“So, do you have any more questions regarding what we discussed today?” Pearl asked, watching Lapis curiously while filing the papers back into the folder.

“I guess not.” Lapis rather answered because if she said yes, that would mean spending extra minutes with the lecturer in one room. She swore that if she were there any longer, she would sweat the couch through to the floor. “I got everything.”

“I am more than glad to hear that.” The pale woman grinned and with the folder in her hands she stood up from the sofa. “At this point I assume that it is time to end the session then.” She said, watching Lapis standing up.

“Yeah… probably.” The girl dusted off her sweater, fixing it on herself a little. She could feel how flushed she was, literally burning and dying in it, watching as Ms. White was passing her by.

“Alright. In that case I will be expecting you at 4 PM the next week again.” She stated while accompanying Lapis to the small hallway, opening the main door for her. “Thank you for coming. I believe that we can help you getting through this.”

Lapis slipped into her shoes, then put on her jacket and zipped it up, walking out of the apartment. “Yeah, I… I hope so.” She grinned rather coyly, but in spite of what she just said, she wasn’t entirely sure how psychically prepared she would be the next time. Honestly, she would preferably end this whole thing right now, although there maybe was a teeny tiny part of her that kind of enjoyed the session. Yeah, the private class was nice in a way, but still it was so stressful!

The girl exhaled, fighting a sudden mixture of strange emotions in her.

Ms. White leaned her shoulder against the doorframe, folder rested in her arms. “I will see you the next week then. Come prepared.”

“S-sure. I will… Good night.” Lapis saluted, then turned on her heels and paced downstairs.

She had no idea how she managed surviving this. But honestly, it wasn't as bad as she expected it to be. It went quite well in the end. Lapis did feel a bit tensed from time to time, but still there was something that made her feel like everything was okay. Maybe she might give it a chance, but still she was worried about her so-called feelings that could strike any time rather than the actual learning process. Everything might go wrong, but maybe this was just the right time to show herself that there was nothing in the world that she couldn't handle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter recapitulation:**
> 
> • Lapis and Pearl discussed Lapis’ essay  
• Lapis agreed on attending in extra mineralogy lessons due to her high absence in regular classes


End file.
